22 years ago, 139 children ages 5 years to 8 assembled on a chilly fall morning in the empty courts of El Sereno Park. Parents, teachers and children all nervously anticipated the start of the first day of the first public charter elementary school in East Los Angeles. With no building to hold classes in, Academia Semillas del Pueblo began in an abandoned recreation room of a city park, carting classroom supplies out to the yard daily. Children first enrolled in kinder 2002 graduated from high school in 2016. We are honored to have been entrusted with their lives and livelihoods for over a decade and now celebrate the commencement of their paths as adult members of our communities
and sovereign nations.