Inglewood charter school opens for limited in-person learning

Green Dot California charter school Animo City of Champions, opened up for limited in-person instruction for students considered "high-need."

Ashley Mackey Image
Friday, March 5, 2021
Inglewood charter school opens for limited in-person learning
Green Dot California charter school Animo City of Champions, opened up for limited in-person instruction for students considered "high-need."

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- Green Dot California opened up seven of their 19 schools for in-person instruction this week and one of those schools is in Inglewood.

"We have taken extreme precautions to make sure that our staff, our students and our parents feel safe as we launch small group learning," said Animo City of Champions Principal Cen'cere Cooks.

At Animo City of Champions in Inglewood, using their own data, in-person learning was made available to students who are considered high-need.

"Students who are foster and are homeless," Cooks said. "Our students who are emergent bilinguals and those students who are just needing a safe place and stable technology to come in and do some of their classwork."

Animo City of Champions invited students back for in-person learning on March 1st and Veronica Ortega, mother to a 10th grader, said she already notices a major improvement in her child's focus and attitude.

"It's only been a couple of days, her attitude has changed completely," Ortega said. "She was going kind of downhill at home, grades were being affected, she didn't really want to do anything. Attitude was effected and from day one that she started, it's been great."

School Operations Manager Talina Garcia said many safety precautions were put in place before any students could return like ordering more sanitizer and cleaning supplies.

"We set up some individual sneeze guards for each desk," Garcia said. "We also set up little stations for each student to have supplies that they'll need."

"It has been nearly a year since we haven't had our students or families here on campus," Cooks said. "We are a school who pride ourselves in being a family and building community and so opening in this safe format allows us to bring back those students to just start doing that."

As of right now, there's no specific timeline for fully re-opening but school officials said they'll be following state and county guidelines and adhering to all COVID-19 protocols.

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