History

YPICS was founded by the Youth Policy Institute Inc. (YPI), a nonprofit community based organization, in June 2010. At the time of it’s founding, YPICS consolidated the governance, leadership, and operations of two existing independent charter schools; Bert Corona Charter School, now a 5-8th grade school, was opened in July 2004.  Monseñor Oscar Romero Charter School, a 6-8th grade school opened in May 2007. YPICS’ third school, YPI Valley Public Charter High School (Bert Corona High School) was recently opened in August 2015.

Our founding organization, The Youth Policy Institute Inc. was founded by David L. Hackett in 1983 as national nonprofit organization targeting anti-poverty and youth related issues. In 1996, under the direction of Dixon Slingerland, YPI moved its base of operations and programming to Los Angeles with a focus on providing direct education and human need services for low income families and communities. Today, YPI’s trademark is in providing place-based initiatives in target communities that provide an array of education, training, and technology services in partnership with families and other public and private organizations. Our schools were developed to provide quality public school options for parents as part of a comprehensive community growth strategy.

Bert Corona Charter Schools emphasizes technology integration, project-based and service-learning, along with high-levels of parental engagement. Bert Corona Charter High School will carry forward the instructional focus and themes of Bert Corona Charter (Middle) school along with early college access and Linked-Learning/CTE pathways.

Bert Corona was a prominent Latino community organizer who dedicated his life to lead the struggle of poor immigrant communities in California and across the nation for social and economic justice. Above all, he never failed to give an eloquent and insistent voice to the importance of education. Corona believed in the Jeffersonian ideal that without an intelligent citizenry, democracy and its attendant ideals become quite impossible.