[MUSIC] My name is Claudio Coria and I'm the proud principal of Alhambra High School. I've been here, this is my 5th year as principal, and it's been a great experience. We work with 9th through 12th grade students here, a school of 2,800 of the most brilliant, magnificent students you'll ever meet. The diversity of the student body here at Alhambra High School is one of the most diverse in the state, probably. We have 2,800 students. The majority are Hispanic, but we have a huge refugee student population, so we have one of the largest English language learner groups. Within that English language learner group, about 300 of them, there's a significant portion who are students from other countries, parts of Africa, Somalia, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Congo, that kind of place. Afghanistan, Iraq, Burma, any places where there's difficulties, war, we normally get students from there. So quite a unique feature in our school, most schools don't have that. Normally ELL consists of Hispanics here in the Southwest, but that's a very unique feature here for us. Teacher recruitment and retention is really one of the most important pieces that we have here. We're the leaders in the district in this regard. I would say that one, we have the school culture that is pulling teachers here to our school, keeping them here. So as a principal I worry about hiring the best teachers for our students. One of the best ways we do that is really not to recruit but really to retain great teachers. We retain great teachers and those teachers connect with other great teachers and they bring them along. I've hired two husband and wife situations and that's been great. But really the other piece I think as a professional development, teachers want to know that they're valuable and that they're always growing and learning. So we provide significant amount of that in an array of ways, one is the National Board Certification process. When I arrived here in 2011, we had zero National Board Certified teachers. Just recently, we found out that we had four more, so we have total of 11, most in the district. And what that means is that teachers are developing professionally in the most rigorous ways. I can honestly say that we have some of the best teachers in the country working with our kids. And in fact, we have one right here in this room. Yeah so at Alhambra high school that's one of our, again significant pieces. So our English language learners are really part of the fabric of our culture here. They're not an aside or small group, they really are a significant part. So for example, let's start with sports. Our sports program really is one of the best in the district. Our soccer program, futbol, as they say in Spanish and outside the U.S., is really one of the best in the state. So we have the Mexican and African students there who are significant players, really, so they're right in the middle of that success. They're shaping that success. A lot of our students academically perform well. I just came from a classroom right now, where some of the students are from, I saw a student from Africa, another student from Burma, in a physics class, right in there. Now their English may not be as clean as the others, but they certainly understand conceptually what it is that they're studying, and so that language development takes a little bit more time, but conceptually they understand it. We get them right into those classes, and students feel just a part of that, they're fluid in how they interact with the other students. Very differently than the other schools, other schools have an ELL program, they're generally off to the side somewhere. At Alhambra High School our ELL students are right in the center and are part of the culture here, and that's acceptable. So we have a long history in this community of working with refugee students, ELL students. They have massive apartment complexes that we have here. So the universities, the neighborhood associations, really work to accommodate and connect with them. So there is, for instance, English classes in some of the apartment complexes for parents and students. We also have adult ESL classes here at the school, and we work with the university in partnership. They provide us the instructors. We provide them the parents. We provide them the students. And so it, I see as a team work. So we have a common goal, the community, the school, the state, this country to make sure the people are successful, and developing language and supporting people who have unique needs is really part of that commitment and we've really embraced it here in our community. I think a lot of us because one, we have good caring people around here. That's number one. Number two is that we have a long history of success. Alhambra High School, I think represents United States of America in terms of we're a school of immigrants. A lot of the students here are immigrants. The United States is a country of immigrants. Together we see that students that come from other parts of the country, other parts of the world, you know, have a lot of talents and resources. And it's our job as professionals, and I think as leaders in this area, to really harness the talents and the passion that young people come with, versus looking at what they don't have and what they need. We really look at them as, how do we connect with their passion and interest and make this great community an even better place because of the talents and passion that these young people are bringing to the to the school and to the community. We really benefited a lot from that.
