KIPP Sol Academy in East L.A. will remain in operation, now that the Los Angeles County Board of Education voted on Tuesday to authorize the school’s charter.
The decision comes after months of uncertainty following the Los Angeles Unified School District board’s denial of the charter renewal petition for KIPP Sol in January, finding that the school “did not attain measurable increases in academic achievement schoolwide.”
On Jan. 21, KIPP Sol submitted its renewal petition on appeal to the Los Angeles County Board of Education.
In a 4-3 vote, the board voted to renew the charter, against the recommendation of L.A. County Superintendent of Schools Debra Duarte to deny KIPP Sol’s petition. The charter renewal is for five years. The board plans to review KIPP Sol’s progress.
“Not to support our superintendent’s recommendation, [the decision] was not made lightly,” said board member Yvonne Chan, who voted in favor of authorizing the charter. “I did lose sleep over it.”
“If I must err, then I choose to err on the side of the kids,” Chan said.
During the meeting, students asked board members to save the school they described as a “second home.” One student spoke of her fond memories in the school’s folklorico program. Students of the KIPP Sol’s mariachi program also were in attendance to vouch for their school.
KIPP Sol, which was placed in the middle performance category by the California Department of Education, serves 5th through 8th graders and has a current enrollment of about 461 students. The school, located on Cesar Chavez Avenue, was originally authorized by the LAUSD board in Oct. 2011. In 2021, KIPP Sol was named as a California Distinguished School.
In a report, L.A. County Office of Education staff sided with LAUSD, noting that, “KIPP Sol has not attained measurable increases in academic achievement and has failed to provide clear and convincing evidence that the school is making one year’s progress for each year in school.”
Using a state measuring system that tracks student progress, the report noted that KIPP Sol’s performance in English language arts declined in 2023 and 2024 to scores lower than the state. In math, performance was lower than the state across 2022, 2023, and 2024, according to the report.
CEO of KIPP SoCal Public Schools Angella Martinez admitted to challenges, but said that the “flawed appeal process” and the “negligent renewal process at LAUSD” does not “capture the complete picture of KIPP Sol.”
Martinez noted an “overall positive seven-year academic record” for KIPP Sol. Before the pandemic, Martinez said KIPP Sol outpaced both the state and LAUSD in English language arts and math from 2017 to 2019.
She said KIPP Sol experienced a “significant turnover of leaders and teachers” in the 2022-23 school year. The school principal and a number of “content expert teachers” decided to leave, Martinez said.
“The key priority that school year became to stabilize talent, which slowed recovery,” she said.
Martinez also said the school saw significant increases in the percentage of English learners and students who qualify for free lunch. “We were clearly serving a student population in much greater need than we were pre-pandemic,” she said.
In the 2024-25 school year, Martinez said they’ve implemented a “targeted” approach to address “these root causes.” The school is already seeing gains in math performance, she said. For the upcoming school year, Martinez said KIPP Sol will expand math and literacy coaching and revamp the middle school curriculum with “full teacher retraining.”
“Our students are finally on the path to recovery and growth,” she said.
Not all board members agreed.
“This school’s been around for a while. They have the support. They have the experience, and they still have not provided a strong school for this community,” said board member Betty Forrester.
“Their challenges are also the challenges of all schools at this time, after COVID, in all communities, their trends are trends that have gone on for other schools. So for me, that’s not an excuse,” she added.
