Linda Esperanza Marquez High School

Linda Esperanza Marquez High School (or simply Marquez High School) is a public choice high school in Huntington Park, California that is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Marquez High School opened in 2013 as part of LA Unified's $19.5 billion New School Construction and Modernization Program.[2] The school is a Choice site that offers the LIBRA Academy, The Huntington Park Institute of Applied Medicine, and the School of Social Justice.

Linda Esperanza Marquez High School
Address
6361 Cottage St

Huntington Park
,
California
90255

United States
Coordinates33°58′56″N 118°14′02″W
Information
Typepublic choice, magnet
Established2012
School districtLos Angeles Unified School District
PrincipalKyle Boswell (School of Social Justice)

Jonathan Chaikittirattana (Huntington Park Institute of Applied Medicine)

Lisa Davis (Libra Academy)
Grades9–12
Enrollment460 (2012–13)
Campus typeUrban
Athletics conferenceCentral League
CIF Los Angeles City Section
Team nameGladiators[1]
WebsiteSchool website

The campus was designed by Ehrlich Architects (a Culver City firm that won the 2015 AIA Architecture Firm Award) on a 14-acre industrial site,[3] near a freight rail tunnel and a sawmill. Ehrlich first presented the design in 2005, and construction lasted seven years. The Huntington Park community had initially expressed a preference for a Mediterranean style building similar to the city hall building, but the contemporary design was ultimately approved after community review. Designed for 1,620 students, the facility includes a classroom building with separate floors for each of the three schools, with shared facilities around the other sides, all connected by an "internal pedestrian street". The athletic facilities and library are designed to provide community access when not in use by the school.[4]

The site of the school was previously used as a storage yard for used tires, then became a building materials recycling facility that drew community opposition, especially after it was used to store some 600,000 tons of concrete ruins (standing some 60 feet high) from a portion of the Santa Monica Freeway that collapsed in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.[5] Linda Esperanza Marquez, for whom the school is named, is a community activist who fought to have the site (which she called the "mountain of death") cleared and reused.[6][7][8]

Linda Esperanza Marquez

Linda Esperanza Marquez was one of the few neighbors in Huntington Park who took action in making a change for the community when the toxic dust from " La Montaña" ("the mountain") was making many living around the area sick. "La Montaña" was made up of concrete rubble that created dangerous amounts of pollution. All of the concrete debris resulted from the 1994 incident in Northridge, California where the devastating 6.7 earthquake resulted in the collapse homes as well as the Santa Monica Freeway. Unfortunately all the debris was dumped in the community of Huntington Park just across the street of people's homes.[9]

Linda, who lives directly across from it, came to be one of the most vocal community leaders who fought tirelessly to make a needed change in the community. She worked with CBE staff (Communities for Better Environment) as well as other community members to take action. After a lengthy struggle they lead a winning campaign in 1996 and in 2004 the cleanup finally began.[10]

Linda came to be a hometown hero after leading the 20-year campaign to have the toxic concrete debris removed and because of her tireless fight to make a change, it was decided that the school be named after her, Linda Esperanza Marquez. She was a special guest at the ribbon cutting ceremony on March 8, 2013 and is now well known and admired in the community.[11]

Demographics

In the 2012–13 school year, Marquez enrolled 460 students and was 0.2% Filipino, 0.2% Black, and 99.6% Hispanic.[12]

References
  1. Athletics Home Page (accessed 2014-01-13).
  2. "LAUSD Cuts Ribbon On Linda Esperanza Marquez High School In Huntington Park". CBS Los Angeles. March 8, 2013. Retrieved January 13, 2015.
  3. Edie Cohen, "Keeping It Local: Buildings by Steven Ehrlich and Patricia Rhee Exhibit a Strong Connection to Place", Interior Design, May 1, 2014  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  4. Michael Webb, "Two schools of thought: Brooks + Scarpa and Ehrlich Architects in LA", Architectural Review, September 18, 2013.
  5. Patrick J. McDonnell, "'Rubble Rousers' Fight Dump", Los Angeles Times, March 17, 1996.
  6. Noaki Schwartz, "L.A.'s 'Toxic Tour' takes passengers to sites of pollution nightmares", Associated Press in USA Today, September 14, 2007.
  7. Phuong Lee, "Mobilizing the Masses", Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer 2013.
  8. "Community Celebrates New School and Park Opening on the Site of a Former Toxic Concrete Mountain", Communities for a Better Environment, March 7, 2013.
  9. (PDF) http://www.cbecal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Community-Celebrates-New-School-and-Park-Opening-on-the-Site-of-a-Former-Toxic-Concrete-Mountain.pdf. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. "New ITD / Notebook Decommissioning" (PDF).
  11. "New ITD / Notebook Decommissioning" (PDF).
  12. "LINDA ESPERANZA MARQUEZ SENIOR HIGH HPIAM School Profile". Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Retrieved January 13, 2015.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.