Ethical Leadership Projects

Our kindergartners are our “Pint Sized Heroes” who support a school-wide Food Drive each fall. By turning it into a competition, they get the whole school involved and eager to participate. This year, our small school donated over 17,000 items to the Westside Food Bank.

The feedback we received from the Westside Food Bank is a testament to our community’s generosity and desire to help others; ideals at the core of our values, curriculum, and programming. Our families go beyond pulling out cans from the back of the pantry. Instead, it has become customary for us to view our donations as important gestures to spread love and kindness. Therefore, our families provide healthy, premium, and name-brand products. For a food-insecure child, having access to the same, high-quality foods as their peers means so much, according to staff at the Westside Food Bank. 

They have also worked in the past on a project with endangered animals, which is connected to the Stone Age unit in Global Cultural History. Finally, they collect and design blankets for delivery to local homeless shelters.

The first-grade class has two Service Learning projects during the year, both closely linked to their Global Cultural History and science curricula: the Seven Arrows monarch butterfly sanctuary (in collaboration with the educational group Journey North); and ecology in our community, both at school and in the Ballona Wetlands.

The annual migration of millions of monarch butterflies across North America is among the world’s most spectacular natural events. Facing declines in monarchs’ eastern and western populations, governments, non-profit organizations, community groups, and countless individuals throughout Mexico, the United States, and Canada are cooperating to protect the monarch butterfly.

Through the Symbolic Migration Project, our students participate in monarch conservation and protection. They decorate paper symbolic ambassador monarch butterflies that are mailed and distributed to schools near the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Central Mexico. These symbolic butterflies build bridges of communication among participants in Mexico, the United States, and Canada. United by the monarch butterfly, youth celebrate and pledge to protect monarchs and their extraordinary migration.

Second-graders are our school’s “Keepers of the Earth,” a theme derived from their Global Cultural History curriculum, which focuses on Native Americans, Incas, and Mayans. They work with Heal the Bay, integrating Service Learning with language arts and their science curriculum, which is based on ocean and marine animals.

Our Third Grade Class had a special visitor! Mayor Bass came to hear our students’ idea to hold a Fire Recovery & Resilience Week every January, on the anniversary of the Palisades Fire and during the height of the Santa Ana winds.

They were even given a certificate of recognition for Resilience and Civic Engagement in the Aftermath of the January 2025 Wildfires, which reads:  “As Mayor of Los Angeles and on behalf of its residents, l commend you for your resilience, your work to raise money to help rebuild the Palisades Branch Library, and your dedication to finishing the school year strong despite the loss you experienced in the devastating Palisades Fire. Your commitment to learning and supporting the community in the face of such hardship is a testament to what it means to be a Seven Arrows Seahawk and embodies the very best of our great city. You are L.A. Strong.”

Fourth-graders integrate language arts, drama, and music with a project working with disabled children.

In the fifth grade, students practice their written and spoken Spanish as they write to pen pals in Colombia and work with young Spanish-speaking learners at a Westside elementary school.

Our sixth-grade students divide into small groups, and each group chooses a community service project for the year. The students plan, develop, and carry out this project with the support of adult mentors and teachers.