An Afternoon at John Muir High School

Pasadena Community Foundation hears frequently about the great things happening at John Muir High School Early College Magnet in northwest Pasadena. Muir’s momentum can be attributed to many factors, including the dynamic leadership of principal Dr. Lawton Gray, its three College and Career Academies, a dedicated parent body, and an array of outstanding extracurricular programs.

PCF has supported the school’s successes in recent years with several grants and the Muir Class of 1966 Scholarship Endowment. In late January, PCF spent a wonderful afternoon with our partners from Pasadena Educational Foundation and PUSD Arts & Enrichment Coordinator Karen Anderson to tour two of our nonprofit partners that operate on the campus, as well as a Studio Arts classroom that received a 2023 PCF Rowe & Gayle Giesen Trust grant.

Outward Bound Adventures

Our tour first took us to Outward Bound Adventures (OBA), where Executive Director Charles Thomas and intern Jahs’tus Maat-Hotep weaved us through an office humming with students enjoying the space over lunch hour. OBA has received several PCF grants since 1981, including several Capital Grants and Racial Equity Grant focused on education in 2022.

Charles Thomas (left) and Jahs’tus Maat-Hotep in the Outward Bound “gear room” at John Muir High School.

Charles explained that OBA has six distinct programs that help BIPOC teens and young adults learn to recreate outdoors, receive training in environmental and conservation work, and practice critical outdoor skills like first aid, navigation, and much more. Multi-day (sometimes weeks) back-country excursions are the reward, during which participants camp, hike, rock climb, fish, and mountain bike. Charles notes

“What’s really important here is that youth from communities of color, who have been historically absent from this work, are building their outdoor pedigree. These kids are pioneers.”

Mentoring & Partnership for Youth Development (MPYD) 

Mentoring & Partnership for Youth Development (MPYD) brings adult mentors from the community together with male students during lunchtime and afterschool sessions, as well as regular field trips. The mentors offer guidance and encouragement toward academic success, helping participants develop better social skills, gain employment experience, and enhance family relations.

MPYD has been a partner organization in the PCF Scholars Program, and with funding support from PCF, MPYD has recently joined forces with nonprofit College Access Plan, who also holds weekly classes and workshops on the Muir campus. Together, the two organizations provide vital assistance in helping students apply for and get accepted into college.

MPYD during a lunch hour meeting,. January 25, 2024

Studio Arts

We ended our tour inside art teacher Cynthia Lake’s expansive, light-filled classroom, where students are exposed to multiple forms of studio artmaking during the regular school day and in the afterschool club, the Mustang Design Lab. Pasadena Educational Foundation secured a 2023 PCF Giesen Trust Grant that has supported the purchase of new equipment for these spaces, as well as field trips to see exhibitions, professional artist spaces, and creative industries.

We watched as students cut and pieced together fabric for aprons while several others were focused on learning how to thread a sewing machine. The ambiance was calm, happy, and mutually supportive – students helping one another, Ms. Lake scurrying from table to table to offer assistance, and students good naturedly joking with Ms. Lake.

A student in Cynthia Lake’s Art Studio class takes a break from his sewing project.