Portola Highly Gifted Magnet, established in 1979, shares the campus of Portola Middle School. Our highly gifted magnet school has been deemed a "Model of Excellence" school by the Los Angeles Unified School District. This designation means that more than 75% of our students score in the Proficient or Advanced range in both English Language Arts (ELA) and Math on the annual testing administered by the state of California. Specifically, 99% of our students in ELA and 95% of our students in math score in the proficient/advanced range. Portola's percentages are the best in Los Angeles Unified School District among middle schools testing 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.  The magnet program focuses on accelerated, in-depth course work in history, language arts, mathematics and science.  In addition to rigorous academic instruction, our magnet students participate in high numbers in Portola's award winning choir, orchestra, and drama productions.

As a highly gifted magnet, our student population is composed of students who score at the 99.5% and above on a district administered intelligence test. What this means is that our students are the best and brightest throughout LAUSD. In addition to excellent students, Portola has a highly qualified teaching staff who are experts at differentiating their instruction in order to provide a highly rigorous academic program for all our students. Highly qualified teachers plus academically highly gifted and capable students is a winning combination. We are on a single track calendar which begins in September and ends in June.