Thursday, December 11, 2008

Memorial High School - II

My first visit to classroom - I talked to the teacher Jacqueline Wilson about the school demographics and history. I am going into this research knowing that I have a lot to work on in terms of handling my bias. But, boy was this an eye-opener! How easy it is to make assumptions even when you think you are forming an informed opinion.

I menitoned in my earlier post that Memorial HS was a public charter school. I assumed that like other public high schools it was a neighborhood school. In fact, because it is a charter school students have no residency requirement. The fact that in any given year, about 10-15 students stay betwen 25-40 miles away adds another factor to an already difficult situation.

Notes form an earlier meeting about the school
* 22 students - 8 juniors, 14 seniors, 13 girls, 9 boys
* CA HS req is 2 Math + 2 Sci courses
* UC has a 3 yr Math req/4 yrs reco
* CAHSEE in the 07-08 batch had a 75% pass rate for AMth, 61% for English
**Most of the Math issues are actually lang issues
* EPAAHS - 84% graduation rate (this is a CA calcualted rate, the actual is a moving target as students leave and we don't track that well)
* Student population comes from all over - it is an ope charter school with no geograpical boundaries on enrolllment - like from Oakland, Hayward and Union City. This leads ot absenteeim that has nothing to do with motivation to come ot school.
* Parenting is very low - teen pregnancies are on the rise
* Free and reduced price lunch is at 80-90% at EPAHS
* EastSide Prep erodes the enrollment at EPAHS as it is a similar academically oriented school. The comprehensive public HS (Carlmont, Sequoia, Woodside, Menlo-Atherton) draw students away as they have better sports programs and bigger proms, a homecoming etc.
* Funding is shared by CA($6000/student) and Stanford($7000/student), inspite fo this they lack proper infrastructure.
**SUSE - refunds the STEP students' tuitions if they teach in an underperforming district for 5 years.
* Facts about East Palo Alto
** Largest US city without a bank, grocery store
** Population has grown from 30,000-50,000 in the last few years - city infrastructure unable to handle the growth
** 1992 - calle dhe murder capital of US. Crime reduced but now is on the upswing. The predominantly AA city is now slowly becoming Hispanic, Pacific Islander and then AA. the school demographics reflect this (2 AA out of 22) - largely Spanish speaking class.