A Study in Size

"I'm feelin' dat, though," says a boy with a thin mustache, his long hair peeking out the back of his hat. "Like, I see that in the Mission every day."

As a white kid living in the Excelsior, Fenech might not see what the poem describes, but like most of his classmates, he's into hip hop — which matches the rhythm of Riley's poetry. The pieces use the same cadence as the students' music and the same language heard in June Jordan's hallways.

Many San Francisco high schools would invite Riley as a guest speaker, but few would devote an entire course to Chicano literature. Because June Jordan is small, though, teachers know every student and can tailor the curriculum to the specific individuals in their classes. As a result, students learn about concepts like theme, tone, and metaphor via material that interests them.

"We know what kind of kids we have. We're not going to teach Huck Finn and expect them to relate to a little boy on a river," says Jackie Jenkins, a teacher-in-training who'll be a full-time June Jordan instructor next year.

It's not as if the classics are neglected at small schools — last year, the entire ninth and 10th grades at June Jordan read Romeo and Juliet — but works like Riley's poetry help students engage more directly with their coursework, making it easier to move beyond basic, rote lessons into critical thought. As for that critical thinking, huge sheets of paper hang from the walls of Fenech's economics class, evidence of last week's spirited debate over how Ronald Reagan's economic policies affected the poor and middle class.

"It's actually fun to come to class. You get into discussions instead of doing normal bookwork," says Fenech. "Everybody puts in their position, and you have to have evidence to support your argument."

To honors students at a place like Lowell High School, this may sound like a standard class, but it's well beyond the instruction level at many San Francisco public high schools. While still at O'Connell, for example, Fenech took a technology class with upperclassmen. "The thing [the teacher] designed, I knew how to build," he says. "It was, like, little gear boxes with wires connecting switches, hooking to a light fixture. It was a five-minute job, and you had two class periods to do it." (After Fenech transferred, O'Connell was reformed as a Dream School, and its students' test scores have improved significantly.)

The school's size also gives its teacher-directors license to change student life outside the classroom. Kids spend one afternoon per week on "service learning" projects, ranging from assisting in elder care to tutoring elementary school children. In order to pass 10th grade and to graduate, they must present large projects called "portfolios" and "masterpieces," respectively, before a committee. For one portfolio, Fenech presented the results of a group science project that collected bacteria in places like hallways, lockers, and bathrooms throughout the school and grew it in petri dishes.

June Jordan's least tangible, though perhaps most important, strength is its culture. One-third of its students are African-American, one-third are Latino, and Asian/Pacific Islanders make up the bulk of the rest. Yet instead of self-segregating by race, as is common at larger schools, the students all seem to be at least acquaintance-level friends with each other. The school is too small for segregation, or even to support many cliques. Fenech puts it simply: "It's a small school. I can talk and kick it with most people."

The same ethos extends to teacher-student relationships. Instructors treat the students with respect (though not as peers), and the kids tell story after story of teachers who care enough to stay late to help them with challenging assignments. This dedication is partly due to the many young, idealistic educators on the staff, but that community-oriented, almost familylike atmosphere is consistent with other successful small schools nationwide. For Fenech, it was a major change from his experience at O'Connell.

"They would beat us out the door," he says. "They wouldn't stay after and help. Some teachers, as soon as the bell would ring, as soon as class would end, they'd shut the door. No extra help." (When O'Connell became a Dream School, every teacher had to reapply for his position or leave. Fewer than half stayed.)

Over the last few years, June Jordan's academic rigor has translated into impressive performance. Among the 20 students who transferred to June Jordan as sophomores in 2004, the average freshman-year GPA was 0.94; by winter 2005, the group had improved to a 2.2 average. Only seven of the school's 94 juniors have GPAs below 2.0. The student body also outperformed 80 percent of the state's demographically similar schools on standardized tests. (Balboa High School, less than a mile away, is better than only 20 percent of similar schools.)

"We're all left-wing, progressive educators. We're not supposed to care about test scores," says Alec Lee, one of the co-founders of Aim High Academy. "Then we saw them, and we said: 'That's pretty good.'"

From the outset, Travis Fenech's father, Charles, was skeptical about small schools. The concept didn't make much sense to him, and he didn't expect the idea to survive for long in San Francisco.