On the first day of orientation for her all-girls school on Wednesday, Principal Liz Hicks seemed relatively calm. She personally answered her phone at her office as she was in the middle of preparing for the high-profile school celebration coming up Friday morning. “I’m feeling a little pressure, but I’m mostly excited because this dream...

On a weekend when she has nothing to do, Carrie Wagner may climb 10 miles up the 10,000-foot summit of Mount Baldy. She has already conquered two 19,000-foot volcanoes. But now, at 41, this surfer, skier, adventurer and educator is facing a unique career challenge as the executive director of the first all-girls charter middle school in...

Continuing a stream of major academic wins for LA Unified schools, El Camino Real Charter High School this week won the 2015 national U.S. Academic Decathlon Online competition. The news follows last month’s victory by Granada Hills Charter High students in the 2015 U.S. Academic Decathlon championship. It’s the fifth year in a row that LA...

The problem for girls is boys. Several years ago Elizabeth Hicks, a counseling coordinator for LA Unified, had an idea, to open the first all-girls traditional public school in California in more than a decade. It would be a rigorous STEM academy, requiring girls to take science, math and computer classes from sixth grade through...