“Dr. Liz Hicks is an extraordinary leader whose vision, determination, and deep belief in the potential of every girl have created lasting, measurable change. She has built not just a high-performing school, but also a culture of excellence where rigorous academics, innovation, and unwavering support empower girls to exceed expectations. Her leadership demonstrates what is possible when purpose and practice align — she is setting a new standard for equity and achievement in girls’ education in Los Angeles and beyond.” — Megan K. Murphy, Global Executive Director, International Coalition of Girls’ Schools (ICGS), April 27, 2026
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, and penetrates walls to arrive at its destination, full of hope.” — Maya Angelou
ICGS, in its mission statement, “unites educators, advocates, and partners to advance girls’ education worldwide. It connects 580 schools across 25 countries.”
The quote from Megan Murphy synthesized what Dr. Liz Hicks has created in Mid-City Los Angeles from 2016 to the present, now housed in its new campus established in 2024, located near the University of Southern California (USC) and Mount St. Mary’s University. Dr. Hicks was also pursuing her doctorate from 2015 to 2018 at USC while establishing the Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA). It was validated by Dr. Enrique de la Cruz, Professor Emeritus and former department chair of CSUN’s Asian American Studies, who described it to Dr. Hicks at their 8th GALA fundraiser at USC as “a civil rights success.”
I saw a slogan on a banner hanging on a chain-link fence at a successful all-boys school: “Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges,” on my way to GALA. Full of excitement, I shared this slogan with Dr. Liz Hicks, who was dressed in a green polo T-shirt with an Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) union logo, after a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) strike was averted earlier that day.
Three of us, including Novelyn Aquino, GALA events and community partner coordinator, were seated at her round conference table. Light came through the windows overlooking a sprawling green lawn, where students walked to and from their classrooms. Nearby were the front office, a library with couches, and a wooden reclining chair constructed by GALA students.
GALA has gone beyond that slogan with 100% Advanced Placement (AP) enrollment, as its 17 AP classes are open to anyone showing interest.
The girls are formed with a growth mindset. Beyond building bridges, they are boldly designing their own futures. Unafraid to fail, they are graded based on mastery of concepts rather than rote memorization.
Dr. Hicks describes it as mastery grading, where students are given multiple opportunities to demonstrate understanding and continuously improve.
Their life themes become: “Yes, why not? I don’t know that yet. Soon, I will.”
Growth mindset and mastery grading become all-across-the-board excellence.
In 9th grade, all the girls are introduced to computer basics in their AP class, and in 10th grade, all girls take an AP class on computer principles.
GALA high school graduates have been accepted to 200 universities: Yale; all University of California campuses; all California State Universities; several Ivy League schools; and international institutions, including University College Dublin and the London School of Economics.
At their 8th annual “Launch Her Future” fundraiser at USC, some of their graduates, who are now pursuing master’s degrees at Yale, Stanford, USC, and many more universities, spoke about GALA, where they learned how to think critically, continuously improve, and progress at their own pace. This event, attracting nearly 300 people, raised close to $200,000, with an anonymous donor contributing another $100,000.
Dr. Hicks believes experiences gained outside the classroom are also sources of learning. Students attend more than 60 field trips a year, not only to museums but also to workplaces where they observe women executives in action.
Girls learn from women engineers at SpaceX and Google, professionals behind the scenes at the National Football League (NFL) and the Dodgers, experts in sports medicine, and even financial literacy specialists when they visit finance centers.
GALA students are exposed to glimpses of their future careers.
Indisputable, Impressive Results of Education in an All-Girls School
The results are undeniably impressive: 700 students in this all-girls setting, residing across 100 zip codes in Los Angeles, with a 100% college acceptance rate and a 100% graduation rate, specializing in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
Students come from 84 different schools around Los Angeles, and their families reside in more than 100 different zip codes.
GALA is not exclusive to any zip code; it is for all of Los Angeles.
GALA ranked No. 1 public middle school and No. 2 public high school based on Niche 2026 Rankings and was considered the No. 7 public middle school in the United States.
Initially, the school had students from 79 zip codes. The current population is 30% Latinx, 29% Caucasian, 14% African American, 12% identifying with two or more ethnicities, and 11% Asian, which includes Filipinos and Pacific Islanders at 3%.
In 2016, it started with 100 students in 6th grade and 60 students in 9th grade, initially recruited from student-populated festivals, the Boys and Girls Club, Kingdom Day Parade events, and K-8 parish schools.
Four years later, the first graduating class of 2020 had a 90% graduation rate and a fairly high college acceptance rate.
Today, that has grown to a 100% graduation rate, 100% college acceptance rate, National Merit finalists, sports division champions, and millions in scholarships.
These indisputable results led to 1,400 applicants competing for 100 open slots in 6th grade in 2026.
With that waiting list, Dr. Liz Hicks said: “We need two or three more GALAs to fill that enormous need. Particularly since there is a declining enrollment trend at LAUSD, though there are more who left to go to charter schools who are now coming back to LAUSD.”
Whirlwind of Human Need
Studies have shown that only 9% of women become mechanical engineers, even as women make up 47% of the workforce. Nicholas Kristof, author of “Half the Sky,” wrote about underutilized women worldwide and the opportunities they created to change their circumstances.
In Diana Meehan’s book “Learning Like a Girl,” she wrote on page 5: “Girls have the advantage in grade school. From ages five to ten they have better social acumen, fine motor skills, and verbal ability. They are curious and engaged. In the few years since this girl was curious and engaged, society intervened: in the classroom, where the girls’ questions were dismissed quickly so the teacher could engage the more active boys; outside the classroom, where peer pressure in middle school and high school worked to counter the impulse to be smart; and the media marketplace, where the message was to be cute and sexy, specifically by purchasing products.”
Dr. Hicks came across similar findings in LAUSD.
“While boys and girls are completely equal in math and science in elementary school, the girls lagged behind in middle school, and girls chose not to enroll in AP math and science classes in high school,” she said.
Planning backward, Dr. Hicks visited UCLA’s computer science department, where incoming students had four years of math and four years of science, while many LAUSD students completed only two years of each subject in high school.
That led to her premise of establishing an all-girls school focused on STEM. But not until more research and site visits.
Unstoppable Grit of Dr. Hicks
Every human talent is influenced by both genes and experiences, writes Angela Duckworth, Ph.D., in “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” much like Dr. Hicks.
The author of “Grit” describes 67 traits of geniuses, synthesizing grit as the combination of persistence of motive: working actively toward a definite goal without seeking change or abandoning the task in the face of obstacles. She also emphasizes the power of experiences, where grit is learned from overcoming struggles, climbing the mountain, and reaching the summit after hardship. An earned confidence to try something harder and to have something new.
“For a long time, LAUSD said ‘no’ to the idea of a single-gender school,” Dr. Hicks recalled.
“I worked several years through many ‘no’s’ to try to get GALA’s school plan accepted and approved by LAUSD, and finally, in 2015, LAUSD unanimously approved the GALA plan.”
“I consulted with the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools (NCGS), now ICGS, and Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN), the organization of public schools in New York. I discovered that legally we could offer this model and that the model showed phenomenal results, particularly for girls of color.”
Critical support eventually came from Superintendent Dr. Michelle King and School Board Member Dr. George McKenna, who himself attended an all-boys school and understood the need for single-gender education.
Power of Learned Experiences
Dr. Hicks was influenced by Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe, who served for 17 years as its first female president. Klawe transformed the institution into a national leader in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and increased the enrollment of women from 10% to 51% in those fields. She emphasized that computer science is essential for women, as well as strategic recruitment, increased financial aid, and curriculum redesign.
“It felt like I was being guided from above. I was not adverse to signs of divine help that were coalescing before my eyes. I was just there doing my life chaotically, daily,” she said.
“But somehow I felt like I was drawn to hear a talk by Megan Murphy on the importance of an all-girls school.”
It led to a self-funded trip to New York and Texas, and her findings were amplified with more concrete experiences.
“I also looked at my colleagues and myself who were silencing ourselves. I asked a student to specifically track how often I called more on the boys in the classroom, even though consciously in my mind, I was thinking of calling more on the girls. That too opened my eyes.”
“In LAUSD, specifically, the research showed that from 2018-19 to 2023-2024, girls’ math scores saw a relative drop of 13% of a grade level, while boys improved by 29%” (EdSource.org).
Add to that a book she read on “Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls,” by Myra and David Sadker, and this convergence of research findings led now from an earlier premise to a compelling conclusion to establish an all-girls school.
When we feel the whirlwind of enormous human need, how many of us would respond with grit to dedicate more than a decade of our lives to building a wholesome “whole child” solution of educating girls? How many of us would simply give up?
As if this heavy workload was not enough, she lost her husband, became a widow, while in the middle of pursuing her doctorate. Yet, Dr. Hicks was undeterred, unstoppable, in fact.
Working Actively Toward a Goal
Forming a committee of teachers, educators, advocates, and parents, they developed a plan for establishing an all-girls school and submitted the proposal to LAUSD.
After being told “no” by the LAUSD board, she finally landed a “yes” from Dr. Michelle King, the first African American woman superintendent of LAUSD, and School Board Member Dr. George McKenna.
Dr. Liz Hicks was tasked to write a school plan for an all-boys school, which she did, and Boys Academic Leadership Academy (BALA) was opened in 2017 within LAUSD.
When Dr. Hicks got the yes, she waited for a school site for GALA to be assigned. There was a vacant building at Los Angeles High School that had seen three charter schools come and go. It had fallen into disrepair.
Her group of parents, teachers, and advocates came together to paint walls, clean the facilities, and she requested a fence to be placed between GALA and Los Angeles High.
“We opened with 100 students in 6th grade and 60 students in 9th grade and we built in the different grades each year,”with the first graduating class in 2020.
Their first graduation was held virtually, as it was the height of the coronavirus pandemic that mandated six-foot distancing and the closure of onsite schools.
A Culture of Saying Yes to Opportunities
Dr. Hicks hired her first seven teachers, some of whom she interviewed at Starbucks, as they had no school site yet. Those seven became a solid team doing everything for GALA: painting walls, preparing lesson plans, training, and attending seminars together that a solid culture of teamwork came about.
Today, each new teacher is vetted by the entire department in which they will work. For example, the entire science department is involved in vetting a newly hired science teacher.
It is this tight collegiality and vetting process that sustains a thriving culture of professionalism and accountability, similar to the hiring vetting process in a university.
Dr. Hicks sets the example of teamwork, helping each colleague succeed, while also helping each student succeed until they graduate.
She actively sought funds for counseling services — four counselors to a population of 700 students, including a psychiatric social worker to attend to the interpersonal and emotional needs of students.
The first grant she wrote supported the hiring of enough counselors, having been a former counselor herself.
She found herself saying yes to increasing leadership responsibilities by then-Assistant Superintendent Michelle King to become a coordinator of counselors.
She actively organized counselors in different schools within LAUSD to publish a bulletin and inform students of college requirements, aligning them to take subjects in synchrony with what universities require.
She also created a communication arts academy that resulted in a 75% graduation rate, a discipline combining liberal arts with practical skills in media, writing, and design, preparing students for future careers as well as persuasive communication skills.
She was also given increasing responsibility to be involved with the “10 schools project with UCLA” to increase the enrollment of African Americans in that university. She realized she got more satisfaction in helping students in need.
She was then promoted to assistant principal and was mentored to move to administration and get certified, and later encouraged to pursue a doctorate in education.
Novelyn Aquino wrote her feedback as a parent at GALA: “We are so grateful for her vision and GALA. Every family at GALA hit the school lottery.”
But isn’t it love that made her jump through hoops with hope and positivity?
The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.
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Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 18 years. She also contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4decades.She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participating NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Costa Rica, Mexico and over 22national parks in the U.S., in her pursuit of love for nature and the arts.
