High School Profile

Key Contacts

 

 

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Description / History

Parent-founded New West Charter School (NWC) is a free, independent, high-performing, public charter school, chartered by the State Board of Education and supervised by the Charter Schools Division of the California Department of Education. It is currently serving grades 6 – 12, including our hybrid high school (part online/part in-class curriculum), NWC+, currently serving grades 9 – 12.

The development of NWC began in 2000 with an organized community effort, thanks to the hard work and dedication of many parents to start a new school that would provide Los Angeles’ ethnically, culturally and socio-economically diverse families with a choice in public education. The school first opened its doors September 2003 at its Pico Boulevard campus in West Los Angeles, under its charter granted by the State Board of Education. In fall 2013, New West Charter moved its primary base to 1905 Armacost Avenue as the culmination of its long-term expansion plan. In Spring 2019, we reestablished tenancy at the Pico campus for our 6th and 7th grades only. At that same time, NWC+ established permanent residency at the Armacost campus.

 

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Mission

The mission of New West Charter is to provide an academically-rigorous, highly-individualized education for 21st-century students in grades 6 – 12.

In decades to come, personal success will require increasingly high levels of competency, independence and collaboration in an ever-changing, progressively complex society, whether individuals choose to manage their own businesses, work in public or private organizations, or raise families whose children will face the same challenges. In that context, New West produces extremely capable students by creating a learning environment that promotes academic excellence, strong character development, self-reliance and the tools of productive engagement — the antecedents for success in college preparatory high school programs.

Our school fosters our students’ intellectual and emotional maturity, and simultaneously inspires and challenges each student to fulfill his/her individual potential as a personal lifelong objective and as contributing members of society.

 

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Enrollment

Class of 2019: 89 | Grades 9-12: 458 (current total)

 

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Ethnic Composition

African American 7% | Asian 8% | Hispanic 31% | White 54%

 

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Geographic Diversity

Students come from 70 zip codes from all over Los Angeles County.

 

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Grading Policy

A: 100-90% | B: 89-80% | C: 79-70% | D: 69-60% | F: 60-0%

Transcript represents an un-weighted GPA. New West Charter does not rank its students.

 

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Honors Policy

New West offers a range of honors courses at each grade level but does not offer AP courses. (Our AP Policy can be viewed here.) In order for students to be admitted into an honors class they must either:

1. Pass a subject-specific test or
2. Receive an A in the previous course in the course sequence

More information about our Honors Program can be found here.

 

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School Schedule & Class Format

The school year commences the last week of August and ends the first week of June. It includes:

High school classes meet 7:30am - 2:30pm. NWC sustains the goal of a small student body and reduced-sized classes.

For more detailed information, view our Academic Calendar and Bell Schedule.

 

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Course Offerings & Graduation Requirements

The curriculum’s strong foundation in reading and language arts, mathematics, science, and history and social science, is supplemented by a multitude of enrichment opportunities in world languages, visual and performing arts, physical education and health, and information technology. A robust program of community service and extracurricular activities is designed to have maximum synergy with the academic program.

The New West High School Course Catalog will be available soon. For more detailed information, view our page on Graduation Requirements.

 

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Test Scores / College Admissions

All students have the opportunity to take PSAT, SAT, and ACT.

 

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