Education resources continue to grow and adapt to meet the changing needs of the Students & Community within Santa Monica.
The growing pains of Covid-19 Pandemic’s impact on learning will fuel studies for years to come. Certainly, every family will have stories to share of successful approaches vs. approaches less productive. But one thing is certain. There was never an option for Education to stop.
In the roughly 12 weeks since SoCal schools of every grade level followed Governor Gavin Newsome’s stay-at-home order, hundreds of thousands of students, parents, partners, spouses, kids and teachers have found themselves swimming in uncharted waters.
Students pre-school and primary through senior high; college undergrads through specialty degrees and PhDs; all had to accept ambiguity and uncertainty as a long-term pop quiz. Teachers, professors, aids and administrators quickly shifted strategies from classroom- to online-based methods and technology. Parents and caregivers were thrust into roll of tutor, teacher, and secretary.
SMMUSD regularly boasts a graduation rate of about 95%, with the majority of students moving forward with post-secondary education options. Many students graduate and move on to Santa Monica College (SMC), a two-year community college offering a number of undergraduate programs.
SMMUSD
Here in Los Angeles County, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District serves 10,700 students in both Santa Monica and Malibu. It offers Transitional Kindergarten through 12th grade, 10 elementary schools, two middle schools, one middle / high school, one comprehensive high school, a continuation high school and a K – 8th grade alternative school. The district is also home to 11 early childhood education centers and an adult school.
U.S. News and World Report has named both Santa Monica High School and Malibu High School as Top High Schools in the nation and state, reporting Samohi with the ranking of 914 in the nation and 134 in the state and Malibu High School for ranking of 817 and 125, respectively in 2019.
Three schools have been recognized as National Blue Ribbon Schools: Edison Language Academy, Will Rogers Learning Community and Lincoln Middle School. Lincoln Middle School also earned the Gold School designation in 2015 and is one of nine SMMUSD schools recognized as a California Distinguished School.
For more information, go to smmusd.org.
Santa Monica College (SMC)
With an academic reputation as one of the best community colleges in the nation, SMC has transferred more students to the University of California campuses than any other college in the country—nearly 30 years straight. SMC also is tops in transfers to USC and Loyola Marymount University and is the top feeder west of the Mississippi to the Ivy League Columbia University.
Accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, SMC’s thriving campus serves approximately 34,000 students and more than 100 fields of study. The college has a number of excellent programs to prepare students for careers of the 21st century in emerging fields like interaction design, cloud computing, technical theatre, and global trade and logistics as well as career-focused degrees and certificates in traditional fields like nursing, early childhood education/teacher training, film production and more. For more information, go to www.smc.edu.
Private Schools in the Area
There are 17 private schools rounding out Santa Monica’s offerings, including Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences. Founded in 1971, Crossroads has a total K-12 enrollment of 1,184 with a teacher/student ratio of 8:1. As a college preparatory school, Crossroads is built on a progressive, developmental model of education that prepares students to think critically, express themselves openly and respectfully and commit themselves to lives that value community engagement and social activism.
The Santa Monica Language Academy, a private language school located just steps away from the famous Santa Monica Pier and the Third Street Promenade, caters to the community’s rich diversity and offers language classes for adults and kids. The Academy offers students the opportunity to learn more than 20 languages including Arabic, Armenian, ASL, Chinese, ESL (English as a Second Language), French, German, Hindi, Italian Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian or Spanish in a direct and fun way. Learn more at santamonicalanguage.com.