Sal Castro’s work centered around building community through engagement. The Cal State LA program named after the late educator, social activist, and Cal State LA alumnus endeavors to do the same.
In its third year of existence, the Sal Castro Academy for Urban Teacher Leaders has expanded to include 128 participants from five Los Angeles area school districts. The College of Education program trains teachers and other educators to be student-centered advocates in a year-long program that encourages them to collaborate and learn from each other.
“Some of the ideas and the speaker presentations that we bring in need space to breathe, to be implemented, and workshopped,” said program coordinator Jason Kim-Seda. “The participants take what they learn from each session, bring it back to their school sites or district sites and work on them. They return to the next session and discuss with colleagues what’s working, what’s next, what is needed. It creates this year-long cycle of learning implementation and reflection.”
The course is offered to classroom teachers, counselors, and administrators at the school and district levels who are involved in the creation of Ethnic Studies programs and/or the development of student leaders committed to civic and community engagement and activism.
The aim is to affect systemic change in education and their communities through a transformative and empowering curriculum, interweaving community-based activism, Ethnic Studies, and Youth Participatory Action Research, an innovative approach in which young people are trained to conduct systematic research to improve their lives, communities, and the institutions that serve them.
“The idea is to bring a team of folks together to support a program,” Kim-Seda said.
This school year, the academy also added a transitional kindegarten-8th grade curriculum that will help educators introduce Castro’s philosophies to students of a younger age.
“They won’t necessarily teach Ethnic Studies to second graders, but teachers can introduce their students to concepts of social justice, fairness, equity, identity at the younger grades. It’s good educational practice,” Kim-Seda said.
Angela Lin, executive director of elementary schools (TK-8) at the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, participated in last year’s high school sessions.
“After it was over, I reached out and said we need this for elementary,” she said. “I have schools and principals who would be champing at the bit to be a part of this; we are hungry for it. It’s just so bucket-filling, and informative, and educational. We can put what we learn in these sessions to work immediately.”
The academy was founded in 2021 as a week-long course held over Zoom because of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were about a dozen participants.
Kim-Seda took over as coordinator soon after, and the program was shut down for 2022 as he redesigned the curriculum and format.
It returned in 2023-24 as a school-year-long program with one class held per month. The number of participants expanded to 32 educators from a pair of local school districts, El Rancho and Hacienda La Puente.
The academy has grown even more for 2024-25. Forty-eight educators from four districts—El Rancho, Hacienda La Puente, Nowalk-La Mirada, and Rowland—are enrolled in the TK-8 course, and the high school group consists of 80 teachers and administrators representing the five districts of Bellflower, Hacienda La Puente, Norwalk-La Mirada, Rowland, and Whittier Union.
The growing interest in the academy can be partly attributed, according to Kim-Seda, to the California mandate that requires all high school students complete one semester of Ethnic Studies, starting in the 2029-30 school year.
This year’s participating school districts are at different stages of incorporating Ethnic Studies in their curriculum. Some have been teaching it for about a decade, while others are still in the developmental stage.
“Because we work with a variety of different districts in the academy, we’re not in our own echo chamber,” Lin said. “One of the biggest values is that we get to hear where other districts with similar goals and challenges are at in their progress. We get to work collaboratively with teachers, educators, and administrators from across the local region to develop a study together. “
Kim-Seda says some school districts are taking on the challenge of introducing Ethnic Studies outside of Social Studies.
“There are different knowledge levels with each district,” Kim-Seda said. “As the demand grows (because of the state mandate), there’s a need to train new teachers. But even for the districts that have taught Ethnic Studies for a while, there’s a freshness to meeting teachers who are new to the discipline, in terms of the exchange of information. It’s been a really nice mix.”
The academy also provides some history lessons as some of the educators have been unaware of Castro and his influence on the education of students from East L.A.
Castro began to make his mark as an organizer and student advocate while completing his bachelor’s degree at Cal State LA (known then as L.A. State) in the early 1960s.
While working at East L.A. schools, he joined fellow graduate students as a member of Mexican American Committee on Education that made recommendations to the LA. County Board of Supervisors to improve conditions at East L.A. schools, whose student body is predominantly Mexican American.
In 1963, Castro began to meet and advise college students, which would eventually lead to the formation of the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference, an influential training ground for student activists.
Castro’s leadership was crucial leading up to and during the 1968 Chicano Blowouts, a series of walkouts by five East L.A. schools that called attention to the inequities suffered by Mexican American students within the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“We start with learning about his legacy, learning the impetus for the blowouts and walkouts,” said Kim-Seda. “Those issues have not gone away; they’re still present. The idea of community engagement, of exercising basic First Amendment rights to advocate for oneself—those are still relevant for students today who are seeing a world with a lot of challenges.”
Throughout the year, Kim-Seda invites guest speakers, many of whom worked directly with Castro, to provide first-hand accounts about Castro and the blowouts. This year’s guests have included Castro’s widow, Charlotte Lerchenmuller, and walkout leaders Vickie Castro and Rachael Ochoa Cervera.
Alicia Gabuardi, a teacher with Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe Springs, invited some of those same speakers to her Ethnic Studies class.
“I’ve taught about the 1968 blowouts since I started teaching, and not necessarily for ethnic studies,” she said. “I asked some of the women involved in the movement to speak to my class, and that was life-changing for some of my kids. Some were in tears. I really like making those types of connections.”
The lessons from Castro’s advocacy, which began six decades ago, are still relevant today, according to the academy participants.
“I wish I could say we were at a better place today,” Lin said. “We have stepped backwards in many ways, but knowing about Sal Castro’s history and what it took to create change at that time is so important for our students. They learn that what they’re experiencing isn’t anything new. Having shared goals and challenges helps them identify with each other and band together. Learning about the courage that they need to have, and that they can find that courage within themselves is so relevant for our students today.”
The Sal Castro Academy for Urban Teacher Leaders is accepting applications for the 2025-26 school year. Educators interested in participating may email program coordinator Jason Kim-Seda at jkimsed@calstatela.edu.
# # #
California State University, Los Angeles is the premier comprehensive public university in the heart of Los Angeles. Cal State LA is ranked number one in the United States for the upward mobility of its students. Cal State LA is dedicated to engagement, service, and the public good, offering nationally recognized programs in science, the arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education, and the humanities. Founded in 1947, the University serves more than 24,000 students and has more than 250,000 distinguished alumni.
