Ralph Waldo Emerson Community Charter School (formerly Ralph Waldo Emerson Middle School and commonly referred to as Emerson) is a

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the re ...

middle school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

in the

Los Angeles Unified School District Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in ...

in Westwood,

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

, United States. It was designed by famed architect

Richard Neutra Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. H ...

and was named in honor of

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a cham ...

, the American author, poet, and philosopher. The school offers special academic programs, including the Mathematics Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA), the

School for Advanced Studies The School for Advanced Studies (SAS) is a SACS accredited dual-enrollment secondary school in Miami, Florida. It is a part of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools System and is located at five campuses of Miami Dade College Miami Dade Col ...

(SAS), and the Individualized Honors Program (IHP).

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

Bonnie Raitt Bonnie Lynn Raitt (; born November 8, 1949) is an American blues singer and guitarist. In 1971, Raitt released her self-titled debut album. Following this, she released a series of critically acclaimed roots-influenced albums that incorporated ...

both attended Emerson.

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the " King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over ...

, albeit only one semester, and

La Toya Jackson La Toya Yvonne Jackson (born May 29, 1956) is an American singer and television personality. The fifth child and middle daughter of the Jackson family, Jackson first gained recognition on the family's variety television series, ''The Jacksons'', ...

, as well as the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers,

Anthony Kiedis Anthony Kiedis ( ; born November 1, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter. He is a founding member and lead vocalist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kiedis and his fellow band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of F ...

, also studied there. On June 10, 2014, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board granted the school Affiliate Charter status, thus adding Emerson to Los Angeles' growing roster of

charter schools A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autono ...

. Emerson's well known Performing Arts Academy (terminated in 2012) offered classes including Musical Theater, Stage Design, Costume Design, and Dance.

Attendance area

Neighborhoods served by Emerson Middle include West Los Angeles,

Beverly Glen Beverly Glen is a neighborhood in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles, California, located around Beverly Glen Boulevard north of Sunset Boulevard and south of Mulholland Drive. Stone Canyon Reservoir lies in the neighborhood. The nei ...

Beverly Hills Post Office Beverly Hills Post Office (BHPO) is the name given to a section of Los Angeles, California, that lies within the 90210 ZIP code, assigned to the Beverly Hills Post Office. Los Angeles mailing addresses with the ZIP code 90210 may be writte ...

Westwood, Bel-Air, Sawtelle,

Benedict Canyon Benedict Canyon is an area in the Westside of the city of Los Angeles, California. To the north of the Benedict Canyon neighborhood is the neighborhood of Sherman Oaks, to the west is the neighborhood of Beverly Glen, to the east are Beverly P ...

, the Wilshire Corridor, and

Holmby Hills Holmby Hills is a neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, United States. The neighborhood was developed in the early twentieth century by the Janss Investment Company, which developed the rest of Westwood as well as other Los Ang ...

. Also included in its service area are canyon neighborhoods adjacent to the city of

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. ...

; since the neighborhoods are in Los Angeles, the students are not in the

Beverly Hills Unified School District The Beverly Hills Unified School District, abbreviated BHUSD, is a school district based in Beverly Hills, California. It was unified into an elementary and high school district in 1936. Serving the city of Beverly Hills, it consists of one middl ...

boundaries.

Feeder schools

Elementary Schools that feed into Emerson include Fairburn Elementary School, Saturn Elementary School, Warner Avenue Elementary School, Westwood Charter School, Nora Sterry Elementary School, Carthay Elementary School, and Brockton Elementary School. All of these schools are public. Students have also "permitted in" to Emerson from the following schools: Clover Elementary, Canfield Elementary School, Overland Avenue Elementary School, Richland Elementary School, Castle Heights Elementary, and others. Students that graduate from Emerson often go to University High School, Hamilton High School, or Venice High School, as the Emerson attendance zone overlaps with the attendance zones of the three high schools

Architecture

Emerson Middle School's main building was designed by architect

in the International Style of

Architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

, and built between 1937 and 1938. It is a two-story, steel-framed structure with strong horizontals. The first-floor classrooms have large, 15-foot glass and steel sliding doors that open to extend the spaces to the outside, while the second-floor classrooms have stairs leading to rooftop terraces. Due to its streamlined and clean appearance, "Emerson Middle School was considered a leading example of 1930s

Modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

," along with

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

Fallingwater Fallingwater is a house designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in the Laurel Highlands of southwest Pennsylvania, about southeast of Pittsburgh in the United States. It is built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run in the Mill ...

House and

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...

House A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air cond ...

.Barbara Mac Lamprecht, "Richard Neutra: Complete Works," Taschen Books, 2000. p.140.

References

External links

Emerson Middle School
{{coord, 34.053954, -118.436092, type:edu_globe:earth_region:US-CA, display=title International style architecture in California Los Angeles Unified School District schools Public middle schools in California Westwood, Los Angeles Richard Neutra buildings