Birmingham Community Charter High School is a charter high school in the neighborhood/district of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, California, United States. It was founded in 1953 as a 7–12 grade combined high school and became solely a senior high school in 1963. The school has a Van Nuys address and serves Lake Balboa, parts of Encino, and Amestoy Estates. It is within the Los Angeles Unified School District but operates as an internal charter school.
Birmingham Community Charter High School is a charter high school in the neighborhood/district of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, California, United States. It was founded in 1953 as a 7–12 grade combined high school and became solely a senior high school in 1963. The school has a Van Nuys address and serves Lake Balboa, parts of Encino, and Amestoy Estates. It is within the Los Angeles Unified School District but operates as an internal charter school.
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Birmingham Community Charter High School (formerly Birmingham High School) is a charter high school in the neighborhood/district of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, California, United States. It was founded in 1953 as a 7–12 grade combined high school and became solely a senior high school in 1963. The school has a Van Nuys address and serves Lake Balboa, parts of Encino, and Amestoy Estates. It is within the Los Angeles Unified School District but operates as an internal charter school.
History
The land of Birmingham High School was a US Army hospital called Birmingham General Hospital from August 24, 1943, until March 31, 1946. From 1946 to 1950 the hospital was named the Birmingham Veterans Administration Hospital when it was turned over to the Veterans Administration. In 1952, the hospital was sold to the Los Angeles City Schools for $1.00. The hospital was named after Brigadier General Henry Patrick Birmingham (1854–1932), with the World War I US Army Medical Corps.
The school opened in 1953, during the immediate post-World War II era. Originally it served children grades seven to 12 from families newly settled in the San Fernando Valley. As of the 1960s the families were middle-class, and many of them had settled in the San Fernando Valley from the East Coast and the Midwest.
It was in the Los Angeles City High School District until 1961, when it merged into LAUSD.
On November 13, 1992, a 17-year-old student was stabbed twice in the back from a gang-related fight. He was immediately treated and sent to Northridge Hospital Medical Center for non-life-threatening wounds.
By 2006, the student demographics became majority Latino and Hispanic. The same year, Marsha Coates, the principal, established "small learning communities" and a ninth-grade academy in order to cater to incoming students.
Charter designation
On July 1, 2009, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) voted to allow the high school to become a charter school under the name Birmingham Community Charter High School. Prior to the approval, the school officials had fought over whether the school should become a charter for months. Some school officials had advocated creating an alternate school sponsored by the teachers' union on the same campus. About 66% of the faculty members of the school supported the charter change. After the charter was approved, 91 teachers continued to teach at Birmingham while 34 decided to leave to work at other LAUSD schools. This meant the Spanish, science, and history departments had a high level of turnover.
Because of the divisions within teachers and other staff members, the faculty and staff of the magnet program received permission from LAUSD to split from Birmingham. In 2009, Daniel Pearl Magnet High School was formed as an independent high school within the Birmingham campus. Connie Llanos of the Los Angeles Daily News said that Pearl "got off to a rocky start." During the first year as a standalone school, one third of the students left. Some left due to conflicts with Birmingham staff and students; some Birmingham students and staff members tormented Pearl students. Some left because Pearl was so small; they wanted a more comprehensive high school experience. Pearl moved into its own facility next to Birmingham in 2010.
Campus
The school is located in the Lake Balboa area, which was previously a part of Van Nuys. The site was previously a military hospital.
As of 2009, Birmingham has the largest high school campus in the LAUSD, at 53 acres. The campus is in proximity to Reseda.
Attendance boundary
Its attendance boundary includes Lake Balboa, and portions of Van Nuys, Encino, Tarzana, and Reseda. The boundary also includes Amestoy Estates.
Academics
In 2006 Mitchell Landsberg of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "It would be easy to see Birmingham as just another bad public school. But for many students, it's not." He cited the Daniel Pearl Journalism Magnet, the "dedicated core of teachers" and the "variety of honors and Advanced Placement classes." Landsberg stated that despite the demographic changes that came before 2006, "academic standards have not suffered; if anything, a Birmingham diploma today is more difficult to obtain than it was a generation ago."
Demographics
In 2009 the school had 2,700 students. That year, Mitchell Landsberg of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Birmingham is in some ways the quintessential Los Angeles school, with demographics and student performance that come close to mirroring the city as a whole."
In September 2001 there were 1,100 9th graders entering Birmingham High School; this class would become the Class of 2005. Over 350 of the students in this class, over the course of the years, switched to other schools to study. About half of the switching students remained at traditional high schools and the other half went to independent study, vocational school, or other alternative educational settings. In June 2005 there were 521 graduating students of the Class of 2005, fewer than half of the starting number. Media attention to this rate of graduation resulted in a nighttime meeting with parents.
In a period prior to 2006 students zoned to overcrowded high schools were bused to Birmingham. 102 students who were zoned to Belmont High School were instead a part of the Birmingham Class of 2005.
As of 2006 there were almost 4,000 students attending the school. Landsberg wrote that there had been ethnic conflicts between Latino and African-American students and between Latino and Armenian students the same year.
In 2012, LAUSD officials accused the school of failing to adequately respond to allegations of racial discrimination and mishandling disabled student services and expulsion, and the LAUSD officials attempted to return Birmingham to direct district control. Birmingham officials stated that they were unaware of serious problems at their school.
From 2016 to 2017, about 3,145 students enrolled at Birmingham High School, making it a large school. Birmingham is ranked one of the top 10 largest sch
