Central City Value High School is an independent charter school located at 221 N. Westmoreland Avenue, in an urban, mixed residential/commercial area in the City of Los Angeles. Although the school opened in September 2003, the planned school site at 221 N. Westmoreland was not completed in time, nor was the preferred temporary site available. As a result, the school held classes in a succession of locations in its first year, including the Salvation Army Recreation Center, the Angelica Church, and the second floor of Downtown Value School Elementary school.

The Westmoreland site was not available for the 2004-2005 school year. This meant students had to be bused across town (a 45-minute freeway ride from their neighborhoods) to Westchester High School, a large LAUSD school, where classes were held on-campus in rented bungalows. For the following school year, 2005-2006, students were once again bused out of the community- this time to East Los Angeles where they attended classes in bungalows on the site of another charter school that had outgrown the location. The 2006-2007 school year started out in two different churches, Angelica Church for the ninth and tenth graders and Immanuel Presbyterian Church for the eleventh and twelfth graders. In April of 2007 Central City moved to its permanent location and current location. In June 2007, the school proudly graduated its first class.

Recounting the story of Central City and the challenges that students, parents, staff and board members endured in its early years provides insight into the cohesive community which has developed at the school. Without a permanent location and a building to call its own, Central city became a school with a proud history and a shared vision, bound together by relationships and a common set of core values that all embraced. These factors contributed fundamentally to the development of the strong, caring school community that Central City now embodies.

Central City has grown from the original eighty-seven ninth graders in 2003 to approximately 350 students enrolled in grades 9-12 for the Fall of 2009. Over the next five years Central City Value High School projects that its enrollment will increase to its maximum capacity of 480 students. However, the profile of its students is expected to remain the same. The students are mostly Hispanic and low-income with a significant number of English language learners.