Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies

The Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies is a university preparatory secondary school located in Los Angeles, California, United States.

LACES, which serves grades 6 through 12, is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

LACES is consistently ranked highly by Newsweek Magazine for its rigorous courses and exceptional performance. Students at Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies are encouraged to take multiple Advanced Placement Courses. The school is located on the old Louis Pasteur Middle School site and boasts one of the highest API index ratings in LAUSD.

The school is a California Distinguished School and National Blue Ribbon School. It has enrolled students such as Christopher Cabaldon, Quinn Cummings, Patricia Arquette, Leonardo Di Caprio, Marques Houston, Shane West, and David Arquette. LACES is a magnet school and buses in students from around Los Angeles. The students are allowed to take a variety of classes, including one extra period in which to take an elective class, for a total of seven classes per year. (Lending to the school's title as a "Center for Enriched Studies".)

LACES is one of the top schools in the nation. In 2003, it was ranked 10th in the nation among public schools. This ranking was devised by calculating the total number of Advanced Placement courses taken by the graduating class and dividing it by that class. In California, LACES ranked number 1. In 2005, Newsweek again did a rating of high schools, and LACES dropped to 28th nationally and 3rd in California.

LACES has a loose rivalry with Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, also known as SOCES. The rivalry is based for the most part from their titles as Centers for Enriched Studies, and in some sense is more of a token rivalry.

History

LACES was founded as the "Center for Enriched Studies" (minus the "LA") in September 1977 as the first magnet school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. It was the first school created as part of the District's voluntary integration program. The founding principal was David Peha. In the 1977-78 school year, the school was housed in rented classroom space at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. It had an enrollment of about 450 students in grades 4 through 8. However, the Temple building did not meet LAUSD earthquake safety standards, so the following year, 1978-79, the school was relocated to an unused building on the Hamilton High School campus. It also added the 9th grade. Starting in the 1979-80 school year, the school moved once again, this time to an abandoned Catholic school campus at Pico and Arlington in Midtown Los Angeles which the LAUSD purchased. The original classroom building at the Catholic school was demolished and classroom bungalows were installed. LACES continued to add a grade level until reaching the 12 grade in the 1981-82 school year. The first graduating class of LACES was in June, 1982. LACES remained at the Pico and Arlington site until moving to its current site.

The current principal of LACES is Dr. Margaret Kim, previously of John F. Kennedy High School.

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