The goals of the Highly Gifted Magnet are twofold: racial integration and a college preparatory curriculum that serves a special needs population (students who have an LAUSD intellectual assessment exam scoring 99.5% and above = IQ of 140+).  The HGM, which is mandated to maintain 60% minority students, includes and fosters a multi-racial, multi-ethnic student body.  Students come from all geographic and economic reaches of Los Angeles; most come to school via integration busing with journeys lasting 60 to 90 minutes each way. Coupled with this geographic sacrifice, students enroll in the most rigorous and academically accelerated curriculum available in the LAUSD.

HGM faculty members strive to ensure that the level of teaching and evaluation in our Honors and AP courses is commensurate with university work.  However, we also believe that knowledge does not exist in isolation:  foreign languages and cultures, art, music, philosophy, mathematics, science, history, and literature are inextricably linked.  Many students take the opportunity to pursue personal research projects in literature or the sciences, participate in state, regional and national competitions in literature, history, math and science, and enroll in courses of interest at the local colleges and universities.

With about 300 students, we have both the intimacy of a small community and the broad options of a large public high school. HGM students also populate and lead the school’s well-regarded marching band, orchestra, student government, and sports teams. In short, HGM students receive the benefits of a small academic program — a core of teachers and a small student body who know each other well — mixed with the advantages of attending a public, urban high school.