Our vision is to inspire students to become free thinkers by providing rigorous, culturally relevant, media-infused curriculum in a safe, cooperative learning environment.

Media Arts Academy Centinela opened in 2004 in Hawthorne, California. It has taken us 3 years to identify the specific needs of this community and to act upon those needs. We now have a fantastic group of teachers and staff members that are passionate about reaching the lives of our students to offer them choice and help them to have hope for their own futures.

Currently, Media Arts Academy serves a population of students that are African American, Hispanic and Pacific Islander. Our students largely qualify for free and reduced lunch and all attend classes at a counseling center to deal with their current situations. Many of our students are affiliated or members of gangs, some of our students are on probation or parole, many have been cited for various illegal activity. Our curricular strategy is to engage students using project based learning, both teacher and student driven. We are partnering with Studio 4 and High School for Recording Arts in St. Paul Minnesota to offer our students an incentive to completing their required coursework for graduation. Our students have access to a state of the art recording studio to record their own music and poetry. They also have access to a computer to aid in the completion of their schoolwork and to create music, graphic art, and more.

We are excited about this school year and having the privilege of watching our students learn and learning along with them. We are committed to being lifelong learners and helping to create lifelong learners.