Wave Staff Report
SOUTH LOS ANGELES — Longtime educator George J. McKenna was given another honor Aug. 21 when Middle College High School was renamed in his honor.
McKenna retired from the Los Angeles school board in 2024 after a 60-year career in education that saw him serve as a teacher, principal, superintendent and school board member, in Los Angeles, Inglewood and Pasadena.
The current school board voted in May to rename the school after McKenna, 86, in honor of his contributions to public education, educational equity and student achievement. His legacy of excellence, high expectations and unwavering belief in the potential of all students continues to inspire the school community, a school district statement said.
McKenna is best known for turning George Washington Preparatory High School from a failing campus into a national model. His story was depicted in the 1986 movie “The George McKenna Story,” starring Denzel Washington as McKenna.
He was born and raised in New Orleans. He grew up hoping to become an astronaut and turned to engineering as an opportunity to achieve that goal.
While in grad school, he discovered a love for teaching and changed career direction. He was hired as a math teacher at Gardena High School, where he served for eight years before moving to Jordan High. He served as a teacher or administrator at other South Los Angeles schools before being named principal at Washington in 1978.
McKenna called his 10 years at Washington, between 1979 and 1988, “the best experience of my life.”
McKenna knew how to reach Black students to make them want to achieve rather than fearing failure.
As a math teacher, he saw how he could break down Black students’ own deep-seated fear of raising questions by bringing them and those questions to the chalkboard, putting the chalk in their hands and shepherding them through solving each problem methodically before arriving at an indisputable answer.
Watching them go through this process, he said, was transcendent.
Teaching Black students requires not some specific formula, McKenna told writer Erin Aubry Kaplan in 2024. It required a specific mindset around expectations and follow-through that needs to be shared by teachers and principals alike.
“With Black students, some teachers don’t set levels of intellectual achievement, so they focus on managing and disciplining,” he told Kaplan. “The result is that the teacher is frustrated and the student is frustrated. The key is in the teacher’s capacity to be successful, rather than just be a caretaker.”
After Washington High, he moved on to become superintendent of the Inglewood Unified School District, leaving the classroom for good.
“Being superintendent in Inglewood was a great experience, but the politics were terrible,” he told Kaplan. “The school board was an obstacle that dictated too much.”
After subsequent posts in Compton, Pasadena and Los Angeles — as deputy superintendent twice before returning to L.A. as regional superintendent — he retired in 2004. But 10 years later he was tapped to run for the Los Angeles school board after the sudden death of board member Marguerite LaMotte. District 1 covered what was left of the shrinking Black student population in L.A., and constituents wanted an experienced and well-reputed figure like McKenna to replace her.
He spent 10 years on the school board representing South Los Angeles before retiring for good in 2024.
The school renamed in McKenna’s honor was founded in 1989. It was modeled after the pioneering middle college concept established at LaGuardia Middle College High School in Queens, New York and funded by a grant from the California Community College Foundation
For much of its history, the school operated from seven to 10 temporary bungalows that originally served as classrooms for Los Angeles Southwest College. Established in 1967, Los Angeles Southwest College was created to expand educational opportunities and strengthen access to higher education for the communities of South Los Angeles and Watts in the wake of the 1965 Watts Riots..
From its inception, the partnership between the high school and college created a unique educational environment where students could experience both high school and college learning on one campus.
Originally designed to serve students who were academically capable but not fully engaged or challenged in traditional school settings, the school began as one of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s continuation schools. Over time, the program evolved into a highly sought-after college preparatory school that attracts motivated students from throughout the region while continuing to support those who benefit from a smaller, personalized learning environment.
After 23 years in temporary facilities, the school reached a major milestone in May 2012 when it moved into its permanent building on the campus of Los Angeles Southwest College. The new facility strengthened the school’s ability to provide rigorous instruction, expanded student support services, and increased access to college coursework through its dual enrollment partnership.
