LEARNOur Students Need a Theater!
Our mission at CHAMPS is to educate, guide, and inspire creative and critical thinking through artistic experience. Although our students have an arts infused education, they don't have a theater where they can perform, debate and congregate.
What is the primary issue area that your application will impact?
K-12 STEAM Education
In which areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?
San Fernando Valley
In what stage of innovation is this project, program, or initiative?
Pilot or new project, program, or initiative
What is your understanding of the issue that you are seeking to address?
We need a better campus building or the ability to repair and retrofit the building where we are currently located. We have no theater, no green space, and have the students physical education classes in the garage of the office building where school takes place. The school is located in an underserved community where access to a rigorous education and exposure to the arts and sciences is given tuition-free. At CHAMPS, we expose our students to digital media and film, robotics, dance, drama, music and coding. With this enrichment, we set the students for future success, higher education and possibilities for employment. Our campus is housed in a rented high rise business building. We don't have space for a theater and congregation area for students to meet for assemblies, to have lunch and participate in activities such as Speech and Debate, Spoken Word, clubs and sports.
Describe the project, program, or initiative this grant will support to address the issue.
With funding, we can create a theater with a sound system, lighting system, and seating, retrofit a rooftop area with slide-wire shading and tables for lunch and tutoring and make a sports area on the top level of the garage with the ability to play sports. CHAMPS would be able to create a safe, nurturing environment for the students who attend from the nearby neighborhood as well as other communities. Students have self identified as: 40.7% Hispanic 9.3% Black 7.6% mixed with 1 or more races 59% of students are Socioeconomically Disadvantaged 4.2% are English Language .7% Foster Youth
Describe how Los Angeles County will be different if your work is successful.
Receiving funding would allow our school, CHAMPS, to create a safe place where the students can learn while they are becoming enriched by the academics and academies. Many of these programs are expensive and that they would not normally have the ability to access if they had to pay for them out of pocket. If we could retrofit our campus to have a location that could embrace students with its areas for students to stay after school for tutoring, to play sports, to congregate and perform, this would give them a safe haven in this neighborhood.
What evidence do you have that this project, program, or initiative is or will be successful, and how will you define and measure success?
The retrofitting of the current campus is an early stage project that has not been created due to the lack of funds. Our students deserve a better campus than what we can currently offer to them.
Approximately how many people will be impacted by this project, program, or initiative?
Direct Impact: 75
Indirect Impact: 1,000