Humanitas is one of the nation's oldest and most successful learning communities, engaging more than 500 teachers and 15,000 students in Los Angeles high schools. Since 1988, the Humanitas instructional model has been used to improve the academic achievement of disadvantaged students by strengthening the knowledge, skill, and job satisfaction of their teachers, and by engaging students in a close knit learning experience that keeps them together with caring and dedicated teachers over much of the course of their
high school experience.

Humanitas offers students, the majority of them from low income and minority backgrounds, the opportunity to participate in a challenging, interdisciplinary learning experience organized around relevant themes that encourage critical thinking, writing and verbal skills. Humanitas teachers work together to develop themes and plan instructional activities LAEP partners with schools to share relevant and ongoing professional development for teachers; publish quality lesson plans and units; and create networks of teachers within and across schools and disciplines.