About ECSL

WHAT IS ECSL?

Founded in 1994, the Educators Consortium for Service Learning (ECSL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing meaningful and age-appropriate service learning opportunities within schools and the larger community. ECSL promotes ongoing service learning through professional development and provides continual support for teachers in their critical work with students. ECSL welcomes the participation of public and independent school administrators, teachers, service learning coordinators, parents, and community partners.

MISSION

Our mission is to provide educators with innovative ideas, practical resources and collegial experiences that bring service learning to life in K-12 classrooms. By motivating young people to connect academics to service with a sense of personal responsibility, they can acquire the skills and knowledge which will help them engage in a lifelong passion for addressing local and global issues.

WHAT WE DO

• Bring together a community of teachers, administrators, parents, and partner organizations to emphasize service learning as a teaching pedagogy that connects academics to real world problems and needs, thereby inspiring youth to action.
• Act as a clearinghouse of service learning plans and serve as a collective resource for public and independent K-12 schools and pre-service teachers through professional development opportunities that provide innovative ideas and support, furthering the development of service learning programs and initiatives.
• Enable students to discover and experience how individual and collective action benefits the common good by promoting analytical, creative, practical and ethical thinking among students resulting in service learning experiences that lead to mutual respect, empathy, compassion, and a life-long engagement in service.
• Nurture conversations of meaningful academic learning and service involvement among and within participating schools and community organizations and promote public awareness of how youth are engaged and involved in community solutions.
• With our twenty year history of programming and success, share this model of community building for service learning across the United States and to other countries.
• Seek additional partners to provide visibility and financial support to this organization and to teachers and students for the exceptional contribution they are making to the greater Los Angeles area and beyond.
• Work with over 35 schools annually. Over 120 educators and parents participate and consequently engage over 3000 students per year in service-learning projects.
• Help member schools collaborate and publish projects such as Our Healthy Planet Calendar 2010 (also available in CD), and In Our Global Village: Los Angeles Region Book  2007.