OVERVIEW OF PAST PROGRAMS
WISL members develop expertise on current social issues and work with the wider community on outreach and creative solutions. WISL works within many areas of need for increased youth-led social leadership under the educational equity umbrella (i.e. homelessness, poverty, foster care, etc.). We continue to expand our work and have several exciting ongoing collaborations, outlined below.
WISL’s Early Literacy Consulting Work Snapshots: 2019-present
September 2019: Visit to WISL by former LAUSD School Board Member David Tokovsky for some history & context of LAUSD, Title 1 schools, etc.
October 2019: Interviews at Braddock: to identify issues we ended up tackling. WISL members interviewed teachers and the principal and observed several classrooms to gather relevant data.
November 2019: WISL’s presentation to the Braddock Drive Elementary school team! Here are WISL members after presenting their findings to Braddock teachers and the Principal.
WISL & Braddock Drive Elementary School since 2019…
After WISL presented the results of our research to the Braddock Drive Elementary School team, we developed an action plan with next steps but then… Covid-19 hit! During the 2020-21 school year, WISL worked hard to keep the beloved Wildwood/Braddock Drive Elementary School partnership alive during remote learning and designed a customized program including three weekly zooms (in TK, kinder & 1st grade classrooms)! In collaboration with Braddock’s principal, Eva Lopez, and the wonderful teachers at Braddock, WISL members read books to each class via Zoom, engaged in physical activities related to the literacy strategies focused on that week and had tons of fun! Through WISL’s partnership with Bookworm Global, the books then become Braddock’s to keep (WISL delivers them monthly to each individual classroom at Braddock).
“Replicating” and customizing a second literacy initiative at Short Avenue Elementary School
In January, 2022, WISL began a new partnership with Short Avenue Elementary School, another local title 1 school near Braddock. WISL was contacted by Short Avenue’s Principal, Karen Reynolds, who had heard about WISL’s work with Braddock Elementary School and felt that her first graders would benefit from a similar literacy program, especially following the year of Covid-19 and remote learning. So, WISL partnered with all three 1st grade teachers at Short Avenue Elementary and Zoomed into their classrooms each week!
In addition, for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, WISL has been supporting Wildwood’s 10th and 11th graders for their weekly on-site Braddock work and providing them with their weekly books that they read to their buddies and that the buddy takes home and keeps forever! Below are some examples of WISL’s work to support Wildwood’s longstanding Community Involvement (CI) program at Braddock:
During the 2023-24 school year, WISL has been doing in person literacy work with TK (transitional kindergarten) students at Braddock. The picture below shows the students doing a rock painting activity with a WISL mentor!
WISL’s Senior Seminar
During the 2020-21 school year, WISL led Wildwood’s first-ever Institute run Senior Seminar entitled SPA (Social Problems in America). WISL’s SPA is a natural extension of WISL’s work to continue to develop the Wildwood Institute Model. Year two of SPA (2021-22) was wonderful and year three (2022-23) was equally amazing!
WISL’s 2021-22 Senior SPA Seminar
2021-22 SPA Senior Seminar’s Essential Question:
“In what ways might we better understand “social problems in America”-- and what to do about them -- in today’s world, especially in lieu of all that COVID 19 has exposed?”
Additional WISL Consulting Work: Fall 2019 to the Present
In October of 2019, WISL was contacted by Inner City Education Fund (ICEF) Mar Vista (a Title 1 LAUSD charter school) to design a literacy intervention program based on WISL’s work at Braddock. After spending some time on site conducting a needs assessment, WISL co-constructed a program with ICEF for 3rd graders reading at or below a kindergarten level. Three WISL seniors designed and implemented this program at ICEF.
In November of 2019, WISL was contacted by the Principal of New Village Girls Academy (NVGA). NVGA is a LAUSD public charter school serving at risk and pregnant/parenting teenage girls, many of whom have been through the foster care system. WISL was approached to conduct interviews and research about the girls’ after school programming needs and options for the 2020-21 school year after all of their existing after school programming was unexpectedly terminated.
WISL & New Village Girls Academy’s 2020-2024 ‘Hora De Habla’ Collaboration
WISL members are in their 4th year (2023-24) of our original “Hora De Habla” program. WISL members partner with non-Native English speaking students at New Village Girls Academy to practice their conversational English during active, customized and fun weekly meetings (some in person, some on Zoom)!
WISL visited New Village in person in September 2022 to meet our Hora De Habla partners and plan our year together!
WISL & The SAM Initiative
The SAM Initiative, a giving circle in Los Angeles that “funds and supports programs that support positive social change and nonprofit sustainability,” started working with WISL during the institute’s “ground zero year” in the 2018-2019 school year (when WISL was called Wildwood’s Institute for Social Good and Community Leadership, SGCL)! WISL’s collaboration with SAM has continued as members participate in different phases of the funding cycle with LOI (Letter Of Interest), Fast Pitch, RFP (Request For Proposal), site visits, due diligence and the final funding decision making process. WISL worked again with SAM as much as possible during the remote Covid-19 school year (2020-21). In WISL’s third official year, WISL was invited by SAM to fully participate in their 2021-22 funding cycle in order to include the insights and feedback of locally engaged and informed youth in their entire decision making process. WISL continued exploring all of the possibilities embedded in this work during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years.
2nd Grade Animal Welfare Persuasive Writing Project
WISL Presentation to second grade at Wildwood Elementary
WISL collaborated with 2nd graders at Wildwood Elementary School on a six week persuasive writing unit in a fun and interactive way! focusing on community activism & animal welfare in partnership with Best Friends LA (BFLA). WISL members regularly visited each 2nd grade classroom as well as accompanied each group on a trip to BFLA. This project culminated in each 2nd grader producing a persuasive piece about why animal rescue matters to them.
Wags & Walks
Throughout November 2022, WISL worked hard with Wags & Walks to plan a mental health event. With an intention to measure and improve moods, de-stress and give puppies an opportunity to positively interact with people, WISL wanted to bring dogs to the students at Wildwood. The visit WISL hosted on December 5th, 2022 included four 8-week-old puppies (it was their first time away from their mother!) and 2 adult dogs. All dogs were available for adoption!
In October of 2023, WISL hosted another de-stress event in collaboration with Wags & Walks for the Class of 2024 seniors on October 31. WISL members conducted pre and post dog interaction surveys to measure the dogs’ positive impact on the students during the height of college application season.
