When Brenda Benitez Alcantara transferred to the Robert F. Kennedy UCLA Community School, she was surprised to encounter a dual-language program that encouraged teaching in both Spanish and English.

Benitez Alcantara had come from another school where the goal had been for her to move to an English-only classroom. But the RFK Community School encouraged Alcantara to speak in both Spanish and English – and had a largely bilingual staff – helping her and her family feel included.

“It made me feel valued, and I also share the same for my family,” Alcantara said. “It was such a difference to be in a school where my parents could communicate with my teacher in Spanish, in their language, compared to a school where I would serve as a translator for the teacher to be able to understand my parents and vice versa.”

Alcantara returned as program coordinator for the UCLA Community School program after college. In the role, she supports staff and students, from helping them access UCLA-funded scholarships to scheduling university-partnership field trips.

“I have such a special place in my heart for my alma mater,” she said. “I was very excited in thinking about the opportunity of getting to come back home.”

The UCLA Community School program – founded in 2009 as a partnership between UCLA and the Los Angeles Unified School District – serves students in Koreatown and Pico Union, some of the state’s most densely populated immigrant neighborhoods.

The university partners with the RFK UCLA Community School, which serves about 900 students ranging from kindergartners to 12th graders, in Koreatown. It also works with Horace Mann UCLA Community School, which serves 440 students from 6th to 12th grade in South LA.

“We know all the students and the students know all the teachers,” said Sunanda Kushon, one of the partnership leads at the UCLA Center for Community Schooling. “We’re like a family.”

The Community School program first began as an idea from students at the UCLA School of Education, who were working with United Teachers Los Angeles – the union representing public educators in LA – to create small, autonomous schools as an alternative to charter schools, said Karen Hunter Quartz, the director of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling.

“We believed it might be more sustainable if our school lived within the existing systems, and in particular in partnership with labor, because at that time, most charter schools did not have union affiliations,” said Quartz, one of the school’s founding members.

UCLA began its partnership with both the union and the district as part of its civic mission to serve the LA community, Quartz said. The group chose to serve areas that had historically low rates of sending students to college, she added.

The RFK Community School emphasizes teaching students about the importance of higher education early on, said Wendy Salcedo-Fierro, a partnership lead for the Center of Community Schooling.

UCLA’s primary role in the partnership is providing resources for students through funding, said Quartz. Those resources include the UCLA Teacher Education Program – which prepares students to teach primarily in schools with low-income populations – the UCLA BruinCorps – a community service learning program – and the UCLA Film and Television Summer Institute.

The UCLA School of Law also provides a free, donation-funded legal clinic on the RFK campus through which families and students can ask student representatives questions regarding immigration and labor law. The clinic also hosts workshop sessions for teachers about how to protect and support immigrant students and their families, Alcantara said.

“We have a lot of folks from different places of Latin America, all over the world who really come live in the community,” said Salcedo-Fierro. “They want a lot of services and support around legal consultations, and they get these things completely for free.”

Quartz said she teaches an education course that integrates a learning exchange where community school students attend UCLA, and UCLA students visit the community school. Salcedo-Fierro added that seniors participate in an internship program that focuses on preparing them for college and what to expect after graduation.

The UCLA RFK Community School is also a Spanish dual-language program, meaning classes are taught in both Spanish and English. More than half of the school’s faculty are multilingual, and about half of its alumni are biliterate, according to the school’s website.

Salcedo-Fierro said she believes the dual language program draws families and teachers to the school.

“We knew that we wanted to be this university-assisted, learner-centered place that was very asset-oriented,” Quartz said. “So it seemed absolutely foundational for us to start a dual language program and embrace multiple languages and cultures, because that’s the strength of the community.”

UCLA’s resources have helped RFK Community School expand opportunities for its students and teachers, Salcedo-Fierro said.

“UCLA really helped elevate the role of teachers,” Salcedo-Fierro said. “We’re really looking to them as equal experts and partners.”