El Camino Real Charter High School
El Camino Real Charter High School (also known locally as "ECR" or "Elco") is an independent charter secondary school located in the Woodland Hills district of the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. The school, founded in 1969, was designed to emulate a small college campus, with a large central "quad" and an open campus policy. ECR serves portions of Woodland Hills and West Hills and also maintains a sizable "traveling" student population from other areas of the district. ECR's Academic Performance Index was 832 out  of 1,000 in 2012. On March 31, 2009, El Camino Real High School became a California Distinguished School. In December 2010, the teachers and staff at the school voted for it to become a charter school. This change took effect in the fall of 2011. Demographics. In 1998 the school had 3,315 students enrolled. 5% are African American, 1% American Indian, 15% Asian, 42% White, 29% Latino, 6% Two or more races, 5% English learners, 7% special education students, 43% gifted and talented, 22% economically disadvantaged, and 15% students moving in and out of this school during the year. Over  1,000 of them, as of 1998, were classified as "gifted and talented". Several area parents disliked the LAUSD magnet program points admission system, so they chose to instead move to the ECR attendance zone and enroll their gifted-classified children there. As of 1998, 70% of ECR graduates went on to colleges and universities, compared to 52% overall for LAUSD. Academic competitions. Academic Decathlon team. The school's Academic Decathlon team won national titles in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2014, and 2018. Junior Engineering Technical Society. The Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) promotes interest in engineering, science, math  and technology in high school students and provides them with real-world engineering teamwork and problem-solving experiences. The team participates in the TEAMS (Test of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science) Competition that occurs annually in March and is hosted and sponsored by the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC).