Dear Supporters,

Please read the following message from my friend, supporter, and TIME Committee member, Mario Rocha.  I fully support this effort and am writing a personal letter expressing this to the Los Angeles Unified School District board.

I invite you to support Mario's efforts to obtain approval of the Anahuacalmecac, International University Preparatory High School of North America charter.  You are also invited to join the Facebook group and sign the online petition in support of this effort as well.  Links to all these things appear at the bottom of the page.

Greetings Neighbors and Friends,

I write to implore you on behalf of the children of Los Angeles to take part in our community’s grassroots campaign to move the Los Angeles Unified School District (“L.A.U.S.D.”) into approving our charter for Anahuacalmecac, International University Preparatory High School of North America, which is currently being reviewed by the L.A.U.S.D. and Superintendent David L. Brewer.

As many of you may already know, Anahuacalmecac is the upper division complement to the current International Baccalaureate (IB) Early and Middle Years programs at Academia Semillas del Pueblo (“Academia”) in El Sereno. This high school phase rounds out the vision of a richly multi-cultural, multi-lingual and humanistic educational continuum that we feel children everywhere deserve.

In 2002, founders of Academia had a vision of offering students a high quality international education rooted in cultural practices. The vision developed in response to the cultural void in public schools that insisted on teaching Indigenous Peoples that "History" commenced when Christopher Columbus set foot on this continent and, therefore, our history did not matter. They also wanted to combat the exorbitant dropout rate and failure of the current education system to adequately prepare students for the university.

Under the plan envisioned by Academia, students would leave high school with a diploma in their hands and a uniquely global understanding that would afford them academic confidence in any higher education setting – in the continent or abroad. It would also provide students the wherewithal to maintain their positive sense of identity while respecting other cultures.

You may have heard something of the challenges we have faced in our perilous past and thanks to the hard work of the teachers and students we are now well underway in bringing this new vision to fruition. Our history tells us that teachers and students alone will not win us another victory and so we now appeal for your help in getting the L.A.U.S.D. to approve our current charter.