Social Justice Academy at San Leandro High
By Mia Ousley
Social Justice is the focus of education for about 35 sophomores at San Leandro High School this year… and it will remain their focus until their graduation in 2010.
The Social Justice Academy during this, its first semester, keeps the kids together for half of their daily classes. The students have the appearance and behavior of average high school students but show an above-average classroom participation rate. Ironically, these students were among the most at-risk and poor-performing students in their freshman year.
“The mission of the Social Justice Academy is to empower students to make positive changes in their communities,” says the Academy’s Coordinator, Ari Dolid. “We intend to improve San Leandro and to develop leaders and lifelong learners who can be drawn on as a valuable source of active citizenship to support growth in San Leandro.”
Just how does it work? The program began with the teachers and students going on a retreat before school started to initiate bonding. Then their two morning classes are spent together: First period is the “Social Justice” elective and second period is “English” with a social justice focus. Their afternoons they split up for their last two classes of the day. This is the pattern they’ll follow until graduation, the morning devoted to classes focused on social justice, the afternoon with the rest of their required high school curriculum.
“The Social Justice elective class is basically a survey course of major issues that the kids face,” Dolid said. The first unit was an exploration of racism and an understanding of how the issue works on an individual, cultural, and institutional level. Currently the class is exploring classism—sexism and agism will follow—by reading from Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich’s expose of her attempts to live on minimum wage across the United States.
“We link this with English,” said Dolid, “so we’re reading from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelous’s memoirs of her childhood rape, sexual abuse, and other traumas.
In the spring the classes will be “World History” and “Forensics” (speech and debate), again with a social justice focus. Throughout the year each student will also do a service project related to the curriculum, this year with a theme focusing on peer education.
Dolid formed the idea for the Social Justice Academy two years ago when he first arrived at San Leandro High from New York. He felt the most at-risk students showed a lot of useful social skills, but not necessarily in a positive way, instead using these skills to deflect doing school work that is not applicable to their real lives. “On a day-to-day basis they’re told what to do and how to do it,” said Dolid. “We thought if we could teach them a way to empower themselves they could make a change in their own high school community and community at large.”
He and teacher Jill Synnott started having conversations, eventually getting the principal involved. They received $250,000 in grants from the California Dept. of Education. This led to a year of planning—and recruiting 35 students from among the most at-risk of last year’s freshman class—to the program starting this fall.
So just who are “at-risk” kids? This program’s definition meant any student:
- who is not connecting with curriculum and so is getting bad grades;
- or who has a home environment that makes it difficult to achieve at school;
- or who has gone through severe trauma;
- or who might be on the fringes of a gang.
All interested ninth-graders filled out an application last year and went through an interview. They were asked why they were interested and how they thought it would help them. Then they were asked to tell about a person they admired who made change. The applicants were also asked to name one issue that occurred on campus and what they would possibly do about it.
“We fully understood they didn’t have the background of social justice to know how to make change,” said Dolid, “and not many of them keyed to deeper issues or had really strong ideas.” But he also noted that the issues most prevalent on campus are the most complex and most difficult to solve. “We know these students are exposed to these issues on a daily basis and this is their life; we wanted to bring their life into school.”
Dolid and Synnott decided on a strategy of integrating community service into the curriculum. “Lots of research has been done showing that service learning improves the socio-emotional skill sets of students so that they’re better able to connect with curriculum they are studying in school,” Dolid said. “It has tended to work very well with at risk students in order to reconnect them with their curriculum.”
The first thing in September, the students met with about 15 local and national-based organizations to discuss major needs of the community. Afterward, the students determined what they saw as the biggest needs and what they’d like to work on. “Our hope is that over the course of the year the community partners will come in every so often to work with students on the project,” said Dolid.
Dolid is currently teaching with Nancy Jo Turner while Synnott is on maternity leave.
Social Justice Academy Goals
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Communication: To understand and clearly and confidently express ideas, opinions, information, attitudes, and feelings to and from diverse audiences, through a variety of media.
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Critical Thinking: To draw conclusions, solve problems or create through analysis, reflection, interpretation, reasoning and evaluation.
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Personal Responsibility:
To be self-aware; to identify, access and utilize skills, knowledge and resources towards development as a life-long learner, and to be accountable to one’s self.
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Social Responsibility:
To effectively work and lead in groups, families, and communities by actively demonstrating respect and accountability.
Social Justice Academy Core Beliefs
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Through analysis of the roots of problems, systemic change can be made in any community.
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Change must be based off of the needs of a community.
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Change can only come about when a group of change agents within a community act together openly with the members of that particular community.
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In order to create change, you must be personally responsible for your own actions and participation in your community.
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People can only thrive in conditions that conspire to help them succeed.
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People can learn and succeed no matter what background, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or economic background.
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Success is defined by the individual, not by society.
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