It seems somehow fitting that the support for small neighborhood schools in Oakland began on a very small scale.
The grassroots movement started initially with a group of parents and educators meeting in living rooms and sitting around kitchen tables to discuss ways of closing the learning gap.
"I got involved right away," recalls David Montes de Oca, a member of the Oakland Education Association (OEA). "I listened to parents talk about who their children were and what kinds of adults they wanted them to become. I listened to children talk about their hopes and fears. Everyone felt obligated to do something. More than anything, we recognized that small schools have a positive impact on learning."
The challenge, he says, was to convince others that small is indeed more.
The result of the group's work speaks for itself. Woodland Elementary, the Oakland Unified School District's first small school, opened last year. This fall the district added another elementary school, a K-8 campus, two middle schools and a high school, none of which will house more than 400 students. They aren't charter schools, but they will have more flexibility than other campuses. For example, parents and teachers are in charge of choosing curriculum, hiring staff and creating a theme for each school site.
David Montes de Oca considers teaching at Urban Promise Academy in Oakland a gift.
"If you had told me a year ago we would be where we are today, I can't say I would have believed you," says Montes, who taught at an Oakland middle school with 1,300 students last year. This year he's teaching at Urban Promise Academy, a school for fewer than 400 sixth- to eighth-graders. "It feels very exciting. Having this opportunity is like a gift."
Raquel Rodriguez Jones is also thrilled to be teaching at the new International Community K-5 School in Oakland. Last year she taught at the year-round Hawthorne Elementary School, which was originally built for 500 students but housed 1,400. Teachers held classes in hallways, the cafeteria and even storage rooms. Many former Hawthorne students now attend the new, smaller schools.
"Coming from a school as large as Hawthorne, I am looking forward to getting to know every single child at the school and his or her family," says Rodriguez Jones. "The school has 240 kids with 12 teachers - and reduced class size in grades K-5. With teacher collaboration, a flexible schedule and the right curriculum, we hope to meet the needs of every student."
Many of the new school sites will consist of portable classrooms until new, permanent buildings can be built. The initial cost for the new schools is approximately $1 million. The district has received a $15.7 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for future expansion. The Gates Foundation is offering $230 million in grant money to create new small schools, and break large high schools into small units throughout the nation.
"The most exciting part is that this isn't a one-shot deal in Oakland," says Rodriguez Jones. "The district is putting resources where they are needed - in the densely populated flatlands of Oakland. The district has really gone out of its way to hire very skilled people to support this process. One of the stipulations is that all teachers at the small schools must be credentialed."
Educators in Southern California are also beginning to embrace the concept that size matters. With an influx of bond money, Los Angeles Unified School District plans to build 83 schools in the next six years to accommodate an anticipated increase of 85,000 students. The plan to build new, smaller schools in LAUSD was created in collaboration with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) members.
Even though Los Angeles is "landlocked" and cannot find locations suitable for new megaschools, the district has chosen to build smaller schools to boost student achievement.
The goal is to bring a quality education to students through smaller schools and build schools where every child and every parent is known.
The district will build primary schools - for kindergarten through second grade - that will house 240 to 380 children in hopes that first- and second-graders will get a better foundation academically and socially.
Instead of high schools with 4,000 students, LAUSD is looking at high schools with 1,500 to 1,800 students. Other districts may see that as big, but in Los Angeles it's small.
"Having small schools is a must," says UTLA Vice President Bev Cook, who was involved in the planning. "If you look at our test scores, many overcrowded, year-round schools have some of the lowest scores."
Cook believes in the value of smaller schools. "I taught at one of the first year-round high schools, which had 4,300 students on a campus built for 1,500. We took 120 ninth-graders to a community college that was a 'school within a school.' There were no criteria for kids to participate in the program. They didn't have to be gifted or high achievers. When they went back to their regular school, they outperformed the kids who had not participated in the program. It became clear to me that small is better."
In the Santa Ana Unified School District, where enrollment has grown more than 23 percent in the last decade and is projected to continue growing, the district has taken advantage of a state program that pays for schools to be constructed on land that cannot be used for housing and business. For example, the three-story Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez Fundamental Intermediate School was built two years ago above a parking garage at the Bristol Market Place in the downtown area. Last year the school opened with 600 sixth- and seventh-graders. This year fifth-graders were added, but a separate "fifth-grade village" was created to keep the small-school atmosphere.
Santa Ana Unified has two small schools on the drawing board, which will house approximately 400 children each. It is building them out of necessity, because it is hard to find available space.
All of the newer, smaller Santa Ana schools - those already built and those on the drawing board - are categorized as "fundamental" schools. They emphasize the basics and enforce a strict dress code. Parents are required to sign "contracts" that they will check their children's homework every night and be involved with the school. Students must sign contracts that they will follow school policies.
There is a perception, not entirely unfounded, that such schools are elitist, says Martha Correll, a past president of the Santa Ana Educators Association who teaches at Mendez Intermediate. For example, fundamental schools have "capped" enrollment and thus are not overcrowded. They have a higher than average percentage of GATE students. Until recently, they had few special needs students or English language learners. For these reasons, teachers at neighborhood schools may be resentful.
"The perception is that these are 'special' schools and that makes them special, like a self-fulfilling prophecy," says Correll. Many of them are also defined as "schools of choice," which means that parents camped out overnight, sometimes for days, to get their children enrolled.
This year the "first come, first serve" enrollment policy, has been replaced with a lottery system.
Because parents must provide transportation to fundamental schools, students whose parents don't have cars or can't afford public transportation may be unable to attend. "Those parents who can afford the time and energy - whatever it takes - will get their kids enrolled," says Correll.
"Some parents see these schools as a cure-all," she says. "But that is not necessarily true. It all depends on the school."
In San Francisco, a group of parents, teachers and students is going to great lengths to avoid the feelings of exclusivity small schools may have engendered elsewhere.
"We want to be a district effort - and part of a systemic solution," says Matt Alexander, a member of the United Educators of San Francisco. "We don't want an isolated charter school that takes people away from the district and the union."
Alexander, who taught at a large San Francisco urban high school until last year, is presently on leave so he can focus on a grassroots effort to create a small high school as a pilot project. His coalition has developed a school design and is focusing on organizing the community, raising funds and winning school district approval.
"We know that success won't happen overnight. But if we can open a model school that works, we can take it to the next level and open more schools."
By focusing on the theme, "Justice matters," Alexander says the group hopes "to bridge the gap across ethnicity and class."
"When students feel anonymous, it makes the school unsafe," he says. "There is vandalism, aggressive behavior, theft, substance abuse and gang participation. At my school, a student shot another student in the leg - and my students and I were locked in our classroom."
Alexander believes that security guards and metal detectors are not the answer, because they make schools seem like prisons. And when students feel that they are being treated like criminals, they tend to act that way.
"The alternative is small schools where students feel known and cared for."
At the traditional school where he taught, kids took six classes a day with six different sets of teachers and 35 kids in a class. The teachers had more than 150 students, and counselors had 300 students.
"There was very little chance for meaningful relationships to develop.
"In large schools, you have teachers working 15-hour days, using the best practices, but they can't always give the kids the personalized attention they need. Where I worked, I didn't know four out of five kids walking the halls.
"Anonymity allows kids to do anything. You can't have a safe, loving, supportive institution with thousands of students. Kids want a family-like structure where they can be held accountable."
"A lot of people blame the teachers for problems in low-performing schools," says Alexander, "but the real problem is the institutional structure."
David Montes de Oca considers teaching at Urban Promise Academy in Oakland a gift.
