Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies

The Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies is a public university preparatory secondary school located on 18th Street between La Cienega Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in the Faircrest Heights district of Los Angeles, California, on the former site of Louis Pasteur Middle School.LACES, which serves grades 6 through 12, is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The current principal of LACES is Kimberly Lesure. LACES is a magnet school (the first in LAUSD), and enrolls students from the entire district (selected by a weighted lottery process), many of them coming to school by bus. Students are encouraged to take multiple Advanced Placement Courses, and all students are required to take at least one, AP World History, in 10th grade. The school has one of the highest API index ratings in LAUSD. In 1998, Los Angeles magazine described LACES as "the patriarch of all LAUSD magnets" with "a waiting list stretching into infinity."The school has been named as a California Distinguished School and a National Blue Ribbon School. LACES is frequently ranked among the top high schools in the nation, according to various measures. LACES has consistently ranked high in the Challenge Index rankings created by Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews. In 2003, it was ranked 11th in the nation among public schools. This ranking was devised by calculating the total number of Advanced Placement courses taken by the graduating class and dividing it by that class. In California, LACES ranked number 17. In 2014, LACES ranked first on the Challenge Index among all schools (public and private) in Los Angeles, 5th in California, and 41st nationally. Also in 2014, U.S. News & World Report noted LACES as a "Gold Medal" school, ranking first among LAUSD schools, 19th in the state, and 112th in the nation.