LA Unified officials celebrate new arts high school

Los Angeles Unified officials and elected leaders cut the ribbon Monday on Central L.A. High School #9, the district’s shiny new arts high school.

One of the 1,700 students at the school is ninth grader Kevin Barrera. He and his mother walked to the ribbon cutting ceremony. The logo of the punk rock band the Ramones peeked from under his cardigan.

He talked about wanting to enroll at this campus after he got hooked on the violin in middle school. "My first year, sixth grade, I saw the orchestra and I said, 'I want to join.' I come home and I said ‘Mom, I’m violin in an orchestra,' and she’s like, ‘What?’"

His mother, Marta Barrera, said in Spanish that her surprise gave way to delight. "He's more dedicated to his studies since starting to take music lessons."

Both joined the stream of guests in the glass- and steel-covered lobby of the school auditorium, where four of Kevin Barrera’s schoolmates performed a classical guitar composition.

In the school’s planning stages, L.A.’s biggest arts patron, Eli Broad, pushed the district to focus it on the arts. Broad had a falling out with the district, and didn’t contribute the $5 million he’d pledged, after most student enrollment was open to neighborhood students and the district failed to secure a principal with national credentials.

District Superintendent Ramon Cortines said that’s no reason to dismiss what Broad offered the new institution. "And we owe him a debt. It may not be exactly the way he wanted it but it is open and it would not have been open if he would not have been tenacious in making sure the district did do this."

This high school cost more than $230 million to build. That’s more than any other campus in the district. It’s located on historic Fort Moore Hill, the site of L.A.’s first high school more than a century ago.