Principal's Message
Our Year in Review
George Simpson
Our annual commencement ceremony at Walt Disney Concert Hall brought to a close an historic year. The continued success of our graduates is a true measure of our success. With more than 94 percent of seniors attending college, receiving nearly $4M in scholarships and gaining acceptances from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, our graduates are poised to meet the great challenges of our world today. Our graduates are coming of age at a moment of great consequence. Their success at LACHSA portends a brighter future for all of us. 
As this school year began, the frenzy and fervor was swept away by the sudden and tragic loss of math faculty member Dallas Russell. Mr. Russell was an indefatigable champion of our students and LACHSA. We all miss him. While the loss of "our Champ" brought our community together through our shared grief, we also united through our shared love and passion for the arts. LACHSA Walk for the Arts, a successful fundraising effort on its own, also emerged as a powerful and unifying movement. Our annual LACHSA: Walk for the Arts is a powerful symbol where challenge and adversity met the strength of a united community. After years of delay and disappointment, LACHSA finally broke ground on our long-awaited new facility.This event featured Los Angeles civic leaders, a tribute to tireless supporter CSULA President Rosser and a brimming LACHSA spirit. Our groundbreaking moment was followed by another historic one as LACHSA wrestled with the largest applicant pool in the school's history.With more than 1,000 auditions, admission to LACHSA is becoming more and more competitive, and underscores the need for more universal access to arts education. We also broke records with our fundraising efforts. Our long-standing partner, the Arts High Foundation, raised a record amount exceeding the $1M mark. This is the first time this has been done in the organization's three-decade history. LACHSA parents have played a crucial role in this effort. As Arts High Foundation Board President Marcia Hobbs noted, "the Foundation could not have achieved this goal without the parent community." Our arts departments were recognized in numerous ways and continue to showcase LACHSA as a world-class institution. Unprecedented wins at the Next Generation Jazz Festival, numerous DTASC winners, 67 National Scholastic Awards, two Spotlight winners, JRAY and National Theatre Awards are just some of the accolades garnered this year. We shared our LACHSA spirit with nearly 10,000 underserved elementary and middle school students from the region in our LACHSA On the Road and Take Part in Art initiatives. Funded by the generosity of the Maxwell, H. Gluck Foundation these initiatives bring students to our performances and our students to the community. Leslie Karten, visual arts chair, proudly represented her work at LACHSA at the Arts in Society Conference in Berlin, Germany. Suzanna Guzman in our Principal's Office of Community Engagement was named Mexican-American Opportunity Foundation National Woman of the Year. And Ron Walsh leaves an enduring legacy upon his retirement from LACHSA. As this historic year came to a close, we established a partnership with the Hangzhou High School for the Arts in Shanghai, China. This partnership will feature faculty and student exchanges, study abroad opportunities and visiting artist residencies. I always describe LACHSA as the most exciting and dynamic high school in the United States. This clearly is no exaggeration as I look back at the highlights of our 2010-11 school year. To our students, faculty, staff, families, and alumni, have a great summer! | 
e 2010 Honor Roll includes public elementary, middle and high schools that have been recognized by California's business community for having demonstrated consistently high student academic achievement and for making significant progress toward closing achievement gaps among all their students.
