Original Research by School Decision on Alliance Piera Barbaglia Shaheen Health Services Academy
Alliance Piera Barbaglia Shaheen Health Services Academy is a high school charter serving grades nine through twelve in South Los Angeles. The school operates as a focused, college-preparatory program within the Alliance College-Ready Public Schools network, built around health sciences and medical career pathways. It uses Project Lead The Way curriculum and offers AP coursework alongside career-focused electives in health professions. In October 2025, the Los Angeles Unified School District renewed the school's charter authorization, securing its continued operation for another charter term, a foundational consideration for families enrolling.
The enrollment is small, with students distributed relatively evenly across the four grades. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with a substantial Black student presence and very few students from other racial or ethnic groups. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school in an area and population dealing with significant economic constraint.
The school's most recent state testing results, from the 2024-25 school year, show proficiency rates well below the midpoint. In English language arts, about a third of students met proficiency standards. In math, the proficiency rate was substantially lower, about one in eight. Science proficiency fell between those two. The school's state assessment data do not include a trend across multiple years, so whether these results represent improvement, decline, or stability is unclear from available records. Parents may want to speak with the school directly about recent performance trajectory and any concurrent initiatives to strengthen academic outcomes.
Graduation rate data for the school were not available. The school does not report data on the share of students receiving special education services or classified as English learners.
The South Los Angeles location sits within a community experiencing housing cost pressure. Home values in the 90044 zip code have declined slightly year over year, and median rent has similarly softened. That said, property values remain substantial relative to national benchmarks, and the neighborhood continues to be an active residential area with significant Latino community anchors. Los Angeles as a whole is in an active growth and development phase driven by housing demand, with significant ongoing rezoning and new housing production, though high interest rates and construction costs have moderated the pace of building recently.
A student choosing this school would be selecting a small, themed charter with an explicit health-care focus and a peer environment that is largely working-class, Spanish-speaking or bilingual, and predominantly students of color. The charter model means governance, curriculum, and scheduling operate independently of LAUSD, offering some curricular consistency and focus. For a student drawn to health professions or interested in a college-prep pathway with career framing, the programmatic design is intentional. For families concerned about broader academic proficiency or seeking schools with higher state testing outcomes, the most recent results warrant close discussion with administrators about where student support is concentrated and what classroom and tutoring resources are available.
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