School Feature: City Honors High School

This month, we’re putting a special spotlight on City Honors High School!

Located in downtown Inglewood, CA, City Honors has offered Project ECHO as an elective class for the past 5 years. They’re one of our few special schools that have offered the Project ECHO curriculum to its fullest extent, and we’ve been delighted to see how the student’s have taken to our program and developed their entrepreneurial skills. This school has seen both success and challenges over the past 5 years in Project ECHO, but the most important outcome has been the educational and social impact on the students.

We reached out to the principal, a current teacher, a student, and a recent alumni to hear

about their experience with Project ECHO!

Dr. Saba Araya

Principal of City Honors High School

"Project Echo's entrepreneurship program has exposed students to the endless possibilities! Many students join the class knowing that they want to be an entrepreneur one day. With the Echo curriculum, Launching Echo, students engage in project-based coursework that covers the building blocks of a business. At the same time, students apply classroom learning by developing a business plan for their ideal business while in school or in the near-future. Many students have stated that they are excited to use their business plans and turn their learning into earning. Business plans created in the Entrepreneurial Studies class have led student's to focus on a particular career pathway such as one student's passion in building a business on crustless bread."

"Project Echo has been helpful in teaching life skills and career pathways - especially Entrepreneurial Studies/Business. Some of the life skills that we have seen manifest are confidence in public speaking, feeling successful in collaborating and working with a team, learning how to collect and analyze data, using social media for business, and using creativity to find innovative solutions to difficult problems. These life skills build a student's career pathway toolkit needed for success in the future. City Honors is grateful for Project Echo!"

Eric Wilhite

Teacher at City Honors

"My name is Eric Wilhite and this is my first time working with the Project ECHO curriculum. I believe City Honors has offered this elective class for 2 previous years and this makes 3 years. Having the Project ECHO curriculum as a class elective and introductory business course is a valuable experience for our students. The formal structure of the program allows our students to grasp and understand the business world from a real world perspective. When considering the level of exposure to not only a curriculum, but a field of study that students may choose to embark on as a career is invaluable."

"I would suggest to other teachers that this program is excellent and that it provides an opportunity for the students to develop an understanding of the business world that they can pursue through college to occupational careers in the future. The skills development in writing, constructing impactful visual presentations, speaking and listening skills is invaluable. Watching their self-esteem grow is very rewarding as well as motivating as they expand their horizons and hopes for the future."

Devin

Freshman Student at City Honors

We asked Devin why he decided to join Project ECHO:

"Well since I was a little boy I always wanted to go to college and that college is Harvard University. The reason why I want to attend this college is that I wanted to have Political Science as my major and get a Juris Doctorate degree and take Business classes as well to get a Masters of Business Administration to run my own business someday. I feel like Project ECHO really has me really considering taking business classes even more because the business that my group has come up with has been really fun to work on and with a year of time of this program I have really enjoyed my time with Project ECHO and I can’t wait for more opportunities and what Project ECHO has to offer on making our groups business plan better."

To other students who are considering to join Project ECHO, he says this:

"I would say that this is an opportunity that may benefit you in the long run. This expands your mindset and gets you in touch with your creative side and also really helps you with speaking, resolving questions about deciding issues, communication skills and so much more. Project ECHO is an opportunity that really helps you in ways that you wouldn’t think of."

City Honors 2021 Project ECHO Class