965 W 42nd Pl
Los Angeles, CA 90037

My son attended Manual for 2 years, and that was enough. The school is not terrible, but there is an attitude among the teachers that since this is a ghetto school they should be able to do whatever they want. There is no leadership from the administration and teachers run their classes however they see fit. Mr. Channel, who is mentioned elsewhere here, has a rule that if a student is absent even one day, with or without an excuse, they fail the course. My son was sick one day (with a doctors note!) and failed the class, even though he had all A's. Channel also designates certain pretty girls to be his "helper teachers", and these students get special privileges. Other teachers do much the same, favoring some students, enforcing bizarre rules, etc. We went as far as the school board to protest this, but the attitude seems to be "well , those teachers work in a tough school so we let them alone". At least we didn't have to worry about "teaching to the test". Nobody in this school seems worried about how their students do, long term or short term. I come from a family of educators and I have never experienced a school like this.

If you want to rank this school, based its value on the API scores. At 754, this school is close to a score of 800, which is the state goal. For an inner city school, with a limited amount of resources, this is not only excellent--- but exceptional! People may have their personal opinions about the school's leadership, but the test scores speak volume; the students are learning here.

Do not send your kid to this school they abuse their power against the students. Their staff is very rude and yells at students for no reason. They lie about rules just to take thing form students. The teachers don’t know what they’re teaching.