Pedro Jimenez's Portfolio Homepage

Welcome to my project portfolio.

Biography and Social Context

My name is Pedro Jimenez. I attended UCLA as an undergraduate during a time of great turmoil. We were fighting so that Chicana/o Studies would be recognized as a major unit of study. As part of the struggle, we took over the grass area in front of Murphy and Schoenberg Hall for two of weeks. A hunger strike began, and the media came out to cover it all. Homepage UCLA

While we were successful, it was eye opening to see with what hate and derision other staff and students viewed us. Here is where I began to be aware that while we were all created equal, we were not necessarily viewed as equal by society. There were definitely some that were more privileged than others, and those that were privileged would fight back when, in their eyes, their positions of privilege were challenged.

This experience planted the seed of an idea in my mind, that whatever career path I chose, I would struggle to make sure minority and marginalized students would have an opportunity to make their voices heard, by encouraging them to pursue and continue on into higher education.

I went on to obtain my B.A. from UCLA and then went on to receive my teaching credential from Cal St. L.A. I am currently working on a Master’s Degree in Education and Administrative Credential from UCLA. My goal is to become a principal and thus continue to impact more minority and marginalized students in a positive way, so that they have access to a high quality education, and they have an opportunity to be successful at whatever they decide to do in life.

School Information

I started my teaching career 15 years ago at a school called Hillside Elementary, where I still currently teach. It is located in Lincoln Heights. Hillside Elementary School is a small and shrinking community, due to the number of charter schools that have opened up in our area. These charter schools have managed to pull some of our most involved and active parents away.

Homepage Hillside We have a total student population of 351 students, compared to nearly 1200 when I first started teaching there. 72% of our students are considered socio-economically disadvantaged. 88% of our students are Latino, half of them are English Language Learners. We have a 9% Asian population and 3% of our student body is African-American.

We are a 5+ Program Improvement school, this means we are on a district watch list. We were first placed on PI status back in 2005-2006. This does not mean that our school had not made any gains. In fact, not counting last year, our school had steadily increased our API score to a respectable 771. Last year, though, we had a 50-point drop. This further put us under the microscope of the district.

It was quite disheartening to receive a letter from Mr. Deasy, our Superintendent, letting us know that he was concerned about our school. Mr. Deasy never took into account that our school had been through 5 principals in the last five years, that we had three combo classes, with little district support in 2012-2013, Hillside Elementary Crest and that in the past two years, two of our teachers had been 'disappeared' to the district’s "teacher jail." A term coined for the place teachers are sent while the district investigates a complaint filed against them. One of our teachers was forced to retire, and the other was allowed back into the classroom, cleared of all allegations. Mr. Deasy’s well-timed letter, had the staff extremely demoralized.

I'm happy to share though, that as a staff, with strong leadership, we have bounced back. There is powerful learning going on at Hillside. We are one of the schools leading the way in implementing the Common Core Standards using Project Based Learning. We have begun to focus, once again, on helping our students develop the skills necessary to be successful on the new Smarter Balance exams and to be successful in life beyond school.