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So I grew up in East Los Angeles,

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not even realizing I was poor.

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My dad was a high-ranking gang member who ran the streets.

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Everyone knew who I was,

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so I thought I was a pretty big deal, and I was protected,

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and even though my dad spent most of my life

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in and out of jail,

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I had an amazing mom who was just fiercely independent.

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She worked at the local high school

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as a secretary in the dean's office,

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so she got to see all the kids that got thrown out of class,

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for whatever reason, who were waiting to be disciplined.

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Man, her office was packed.

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So, see, kids like us, we have a lot of things to deal with

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outside of school,

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and sometimes we're just not ready to focus.

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But that doesn't mean that we can't.

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It just takes a little bit more.

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Like, I remember one day I found my dad

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convulsing, foaming at the mouth,

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OD-ing on the bathroom floor.

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Really, do you think that doing my homework that night

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was at the top of my priority list?

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Not so much.

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But I really needed a support network,

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a group of people who were going to help me

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make sure that I wasn't going to be

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a victim of my own circumstance,

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that they were going to push me

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beyond what I even thought I could do.

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I needed teachers, in the classroom, every day,

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who were going to say, "You can move beyond that."

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And unfortunately, the local junior high

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was not going to offer that.

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It was gang-infested, huge teacher turnover rate.

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So my mom said, "You're going on a bus

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an hour and a half away from where we live every day."

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So for the next two years, that's what I did.

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I took a school bus to the fancy side of town.

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And eventually, I ended up at a school

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where there was a mixture.

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There were some people who were really gang-affiliated,

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and then there were those of us

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really trying to make it to high school.

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Well, trying to stay out of trouble was a little unavoidable.

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You had to survive.

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You just had to do things sometimes.

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So there were a lot of teachers who were like,

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"She's never going to make it.

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She has an issue with authority.

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She's not going to go anywhere."

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Some teachers completely wrote me off as a lost cause.

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But then, they were very surprised

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when I graduated from high school.

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I was accepted to Pepperdine University,

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and I came back to the same school that I attended

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to be a special ed assistant.

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And then I told them, "I want to be a teacher."

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And boy, they were like, "What? Why?

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Why would you want to do that?"

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So I began my teaching career

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at the exact same middle school that I attended,

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and I really wanted to try to save more kids

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who were just like me.

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And so every year, I share my background with my kids,

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because they need to know that everyone has a story,

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everyone has a struggle,

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and everyone needs help along the way.

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And I am going to be their help along the way.

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So as a rookie teacher, I created opportunity.

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I had a kid one day come into my class

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having been stabbed the night before.

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I was like, "You need to go to a hospital,

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the school nurse, something."

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He's like, "No, Miss, I'm not going.

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I need to be in class because I need to graduate."

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So he knew that I was not going to let him be a victim

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of his circumstance,

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but we were going to push forward and keep moving on.

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And this idea of creating a safe haven for our kids

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and getting to know exactly what they're going through,

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getting to know their families -- I wanted that,

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but I couldn't do it in a school with 1,600 kids,

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and teachers turning over year after year after year.

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How do you get to build those relationships?

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So we created a new school.

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And we created

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the San Fernando Institute for Applied Media.

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And we made sure that we were still attached

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to our school district for funding, for support.

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But with that, we were going to gain freedom:

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freedom to hire the teachers

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that we knew were going to be effective;

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freedom to control the curriculum

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so that we're not doing lesson 1.2 on page five, no;

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and freedom to control a budget,

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to spend money where it matters,

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not how a district or a state says you have to do it.

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We wanted those freedoms.

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But now, shifting an entire paradigm,

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it hasn't been an easy journey, nor is it even complete.

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But we had to do it.

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Our community deserved a new way of doing things.

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And as the very first pilot middle school

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in all of Los Angeles Unified School District,

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you better believe there was some opposition.

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And it was out of fear --

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fear of, well, what if they get it wrong?

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Yeah, what if we get it wrong?

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But what if we get it right?

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And we did.

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So even though teachers were against it

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because we employ one-year contracts --

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you can't teach, or you don't want to teach,

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you don't get to be at my school with my kids.

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(Applause)

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So in our third year, how did we do it?

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Well, we're making school worth coming to every day.

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We make our kids feel like they matter to us.

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We make our curriculum rigorous and relevant to them,

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and they use all the technology that they're used to.

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Laptops, computers, tablets -- you name it, they have it.

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Animation, software, moviemaking software, they have it all.

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And because we connect it to what they're doing —

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For example, they made public service announcements

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for the Cancer Society.

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These were played in the local trolley system.

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Teaching elements of persuasion,

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it doesn't get any more real than that.

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Our state test scores have gone up

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more than 80 points since we've become our own school.

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But it's taken all stakeholders, working together --

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teachers and principals on one-year contracts,

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working over and above and beyond their contract hours

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without compensation.

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And it takes a school board member

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who is going to lobby for you and say,

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"Know, the district is trying to impose this,

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but you have the freedom to do otherwise."

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And it takes an active parent center

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who is not only there, showing a presence every day,

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but who is part of our governance,

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making decisions for their kids, our kids.

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Because why should our students have to go

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so far away from where they live?

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They deserve a quality school in their neighborhood,

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a school that they can be proud to say they attend,

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and a school that the community can be proud of as well,

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and they need teachers to fight for them every day

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and empower them to move beyond their circumstances.

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Because it's time that kids like me

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stop being the exception, and we become the norm.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)