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Success Stories

On Revisiting Sanchez Elementary School

by Ellen Huppert

In the spring of 1972, I first visited Sanchez Elementary School because my daughter Ann would be going to kindergarten there in the fall. I had little experience with San Francisco’s schools. My own early education took place in a one-room elementary school, and my high school had all of 600 students. Unlike many mothers at that time, my children were not in parent-participatory nursery school, as I was working.

The school district had just been integrated, meaning that children were being bussed to schools out of their neighborhoods. That would be the case with my daughter. While older neighborhood children were attending public schools, Ann would be the only child taking the bus to kindergarten from our immediate area. Was I mistaken in my belief that Sanchez would be fine for her? In my nervousness, I talked to a friend with an older child in public school. She assured me that I had nothing to worry about, so Ann went to Sanchez.

In those days, before Proposition 13 decimated the funds for California public schools, Sanchez had a full-time nurse, social worker and librarian. Great Society federal funding programs provided for school breakfasts, playground improvement, and other amenities. Class sizes were about 28 in kindergarten and 32 in the primary grades.

The children who walked to school were mainly from Spanish-speaking homes and mostly low-income. The immediate neighborhood had mostly multi-family housing, with commercial spaces at street level. We lived in a big house on a street with little through traffic. It was quiet enough that the neighborhood children played in the street. While I knew that middle-class white parents were avoiding the integrated schools, the real effect of integration on Sanchez became apparent to me only gradually.

After Ann’s first year, more children from our neighborhood were enrolled at Sanchez. That brought more mothers anxious to play a role in their children’s school. I was no longer the only parent to appear at the school. One of the results was the formation of a Parent Teacher Association. The PTA was concerned about controlling the funds it raised, rather than just turning them over to the principal. This led to a difficult meeting, with teachers and parents present. The staff was anxious to have funds to buy shoes and glasses for children in need and did not want parents involved. The issue was resolved once the parents understood what the teachers wanted and agreed that they should have the funds at their disposal.

That incident was only one bit of evidence of the tension between parents and teachers. I later realized that many of the teachers were intimidated by the vocal, active, middle-class parents whose children were being sent to their school, expecting to be active in their children’s classrooms. Neither teachers nor parents had been given guidance in adapting to the new conditions. Teachers were accustomed to children from poor families unlikely to make demands on them. Many teachers at that time considered their classrooms to be their sanctuaries, and they did not welcome volunteers, whether they were parents or non-parents. The principal at that time offered little leadership in resolving the tensions.

In January, 2007, Sanchez Elementary School looked much the same, including the temporary classrooms on the school yard that had been there in 1972. Class sizes were much smaller, following the mandate of the California voters to keep enrollment in primary grade classes at 20. The number of children from European backgrounds was much lower than it had been 35 years earlier.

Sanchez was once again learning to adapt to new conditions. This time it was the staff, not the student body, that had been changed. Since Sanchez had been made a “ Dream School,” only the principal and a few of the staff remained from two years before. This time, radical change was being made with strong leadership from the principal and acceptance by the teaching staff of the need to work hard to meet all students’ needs.

My visit during the LPD Grants Open House on January 30, along with other donors, friends, and staff of the San Francisco Education Fund, focused on a project the Ed Fund was supporting: training for the Tribes program for the entire school. This program is based on “The Agreements,” four understandings that everyone in the school takes on. They are: mutual respect, active listening, appreciation (no put-downs), and participation with the right to pass if one is not ready to speak up.

This may seem peripheral to the central task of the school, which is achieving academic success for all. But it was clear from my visit during the Open House that by using methods which assured that every child could be heard and allowed to address emotional issues, children were better able to learn. The rising test scores at the school seem to support that supposition.

Parents as well as children and school staff have been trained in the Tribes program, helping to make them active partners in reinforcing standards of behavior at home as well as at school. A high level of parent involvement, well known to be important for children’s success in school, has been achieved.

It would take much more observation than the brief visit I enjoyed in January to determine the impact Tribes and other projects at the school will have, but what was clear was that the staff works as a team, with frequent grade-level meetings and general staff meetings that reportedly focus on real issues and ways to improve. Parents are involved. The principal was acting as the instructional leader. I was very happy to see that the teachers, principal, and other staff members at Sanchez Elementary have found a way to meet the demands of raising test scores and still spend time on other issues. They take seriously the slogan that “every child can learn.”

–Ellen Huppert

For more information about the Leadership and Professional Development Grants program, please contact Lianna Wright.