La Academia Dolores Huerta Charter School

The vision of La Academia Dolores Huerta Charter School is to encourage students’ development of social identity through language, cultural values, and global realities. La Academia Dolores Huerta Charter School serves students in grades 6-8 from the greater Las Cruces area whose population is socio-economically and linguistically diverse. The school’s curriculum, goals and objectives and methods provide its students with an education based on dual language and multicultural education. The school’s mission is to build a curriculum that enables middle school students to achieve high academic standards and personal growth through:

1. promoting multiculturalism and bilingualism;
2. nurturing diverse cultural awareness and appreciation;
3. recognizing and developing the gifts and skills of each student;
4. providing an education equal to or better than that provided by other public or private schools;
5. promoting nonviolence by emulating the principles and spirit of such leaders as Martin L. King, Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta;
6. encouraging students and their parents to maximize their involvement in an interfacing relationship with the school's staff and thereby assisting them to grow in self-motivation, competency, experiences, independence, knowledge and self-worth.

At La Academia Dolores Huerta Charter School students build their self-identity and self-confidence through their performances in mariachi, baile folklórico, for example, and become proud of who they are. Principal Octavio Casillas believes that it is important for middle school students to leave the school with a strong cultural background with the provision of forming a positive self-identity. La Academia Dolores Huerta Charter School has maintained a school grade of B. Sixty-one percent (61%) of English learners demonstrated proficiency in Reading.

See also: Video: ALD4ALL facilitators dancing with students