Latest Updates from Green Dot
Why This Alumna Became a Counselor at Her Alma Mater
“When I became a counselor many of my friends and even family members would ask me, ‘Do you have a couch where you ask students how they’re doing while you scribble notes in a notepad?’” chuckled Stacie Cruz, a counselor at Ánimo Leadership Charter High School.
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Why This Founding Green Dot Student Came Back to South LA
Daisy Estevez, a social studies teacher at Ánimo Mae Jemison Charter Middle School, became a teacher in hopes of changing the lives and trajectories of students. Estevez was inspired by her teachers at Ánimo Ralph Bunche Charter High School (ARB) who helped change her life when she was a founding student in 2006.
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How Math Will Help This Future Nurse Practitioner
“People always joke that the Pythagorean theorem isn’t going to help you in the real world,” chuckled Ashley Perez, a 2019 Ánimo College Prep Academy alumna.
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How Marching Band Changed This Alumnus’s Life
“The Locke band has given me a purpose,” reflected Danny Velasquez, Alain LeRoy Locke College Preparatory Academy alumnus. “It’s made me more appreciative of music, taught me a sense of responsibility, and has really shown me the importance of collaborating with others.”
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Send Us to SXSWedu 2020: Vote Now for Green Dot’s Panel Submissions
For the fifth year in a row, Green Dot has submitted submitted proposals for our educators, leadership team and staff to lead panels and workshops at SXSWedu’s annual conference in Austin, TX.
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Ánimo Compton Reignites Students’ Love for Learning
“When Brianna Chavez began attending Ánimo Compton Charter School in her seventh grade year she was shocked at how different it was from her previous school. “I was in world history class and I was stuck on an assignment and my teacher just came up to me and said ‘Do you need help?’
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Rising So That Others Can: Meet Alumna Yaritza Gonzalez
During the 1980s, my parents migrated from Mexico to California in search of better opportunities. In California, I grew up in the fields of Oxnard and the streets of Inglewood, where I witnessed members of my community discriminated against, deported, jailed, and murdered.
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Ending Random Searches of Students
Green Dot has always believed that schools should be a place where students feel safe, supported and cared for; not a place where they are seen as criminals or suspects. Unfortunately, this has been the norm for students in Los Angeles for more than a quarter-century.
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Locke Students Shine at First Unified Sports Track Meet
On an early Thursday morning, student athletes from Alain LeRoy Locke College Preparatory Academy’s Unified Sports Track and Field team, boarded their bus anxious, but eager to compete as a team for the first time. Unified Sports is an inclusive sports program where student athletes with and without disabilities play and compete together.
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College and Career Readiness Through the Arts at Ánimo Venice
In underserved communities, students typically have less access to an arts education and receive significantly less exposure to the arts compared to their more affluent peers. To change that, Ánimo Venice Charter High School provides students with both a rigorous core curriculum and an arts education.
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Why This Senior Almost Didn’t Apply to His Dream Schools
Justin Villeraldo once had a strained relationship with school. “Before coming here I would mess around in class and do just enough work so I could culminate,” recalled Villeraldo. “I hated English class the most; I wasn’t able to focus, and I wouldn’t try.”
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What My First College Tour Taught Me About My Future
This year, I had an eye opening experience during my very first college tour as a sophomore at Ánimo City of Champions Charter High School. Together with my classmates and teachers, we visited Stanford University, University of California, Santa Barbara; Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; California State University, Fresno; University of California, Merced; San Jose State University; San Francisco State University, and the University of California, Berkeley.
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Why Sarai Traveled Two Hours a Day for School
Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School (APB) alumna Sarai Flores is one of the many students whose academic trajectories have been dramatically changed since they arrived at a Green Dot school. “I was not a very good student; I felt like school wasn’t important, but my mindset changed when I came to APB. I went from failing all my classes to getting mostly As,” reflected Flores.
Hillcrest Senior ‘Gives Her Best Shot,’ and Lands a Basketball Scholarship
Chancey Jackson, a Hillcrest High School alumna, is heading to Northeast Mississippi Community College in Booneville, Mississippi in the fall on a basketball scholarship. Reflecting on her senior year, Jackson is proud of the strong season she and her teammates had. The Lady Vikings were 14-0 this season, and were the top ranking team in the district.
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Second Annual Ánimo Cup Soccer Tournament Turns Out Two School Winners
This spring, Green Dot middle school and high school students competed in the second annual Ánimo Cup, an intramural soccer tournament for teams in our network. In the middle school division, Ánimo Ellen Ochoa Charter Middle School won against Ánimo Phillis Wheatley Charter Middle School with a score of 2-0 to place first in the middle school tournament.
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Middle School Students Organize a Clean Up in the Wetlands
Styrofoam, plastic straws, and cigarette butts were just a few of the items Ánimo Ellen Ochoa Charter Middle School (AEO) students collected at Ballona Creek this spring.
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How a Dream Helped This Student Rise Above Challenges
“When I was in ninth grade, I would have never thought I’d be going to college with a $20,000 scholarship. If I would have gone to another school, I know I wouldn’t be in the position I am in right now,” said Mecca Herron, a senior at Ánimo College Prep Academy.
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Nearly 3000 Miles From Home But Closer to Their Dreams: How These Alumnae Turned Ivy League Dreams into Realities
This summer, Roxana Andrade, an Oscar De La Hoya Ánimo Charter High School alumna; Maggie Vallejo, an Ánimo Inglewood Charter High School alumna, and Londy Hernandez, an Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School alumna will join other Green Dot graduates in leaving their homes for the first time to pursue their dreams at some of the nation’s most elite universities.
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Making College Real: Why All Green Dot Schools Tour College Campuses
At Green Dot, college tours are a critical component of our students’ path to higher education. Most importantly, exposing students to college campuses feeds a vision for their future, and allows them to imagine themselves walking the campus as a student one day.
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How this student Shared a Stage with Michelle Obama
When Jenissi Gyan, a seventh grader at Excel Public Charter School, joined her local Girl Scout troop four years ago, she never imagined that her participation would lead her to sharing her future dreams in front of former First Lady Michelle Obama and a sold out crowd of 27,000 at the Tacoma Dome.
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How a Student Group Helped Promote a More Inclusive School Environment
“The reaction when you hear the word ‘gay’ on this campus is not the same as it once was. What was once pervasive is no longer,” recalled Sarah Ducker, English teacher at Ánimo Leadership Charter High School.
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Happy Campers: Bluff City Students Experience the Great Outdoors
Last year, a group of 40 founding freshmen from Bluff City High School spent one night at Camp Chia La Key in Huntsville, Alabama. Participants were offered a spot on the trip based on behavior and attendance. The trip began with a tour of Alabama A&M University, where students had lunch on campus and learned more about the university, and ended at the YMCA campground.
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Why this Parent Loves Wooddale Middle School
Antoine Stone is a proud Green Dot parent who considers Wooddale Middle School a second home. “It feels so family oriented and that’s what I love. It’s not just teachers that come to teach kids, but it’s mothers and fathers that come to teach their kids, who they call their kids away from home,” said Stone.
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Hillcrest Sweeps at Annual ACT-SO Competition
This summer, two students from Hillcrest High School will be heading to the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) National Competition in Detroit. The competition was first organized over 30 years ago by NAACP branches across the U.S. to encourage African American high school students to aspire for excellence in 26 academic areas of competition.
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Green Dot Public Schools
1149 S. Hill St., Ste 600
Los Angeles, CA 90015
Phone: (323) 565-1600