It’s a nervous and exciting time at San Leandro High as seniors prepare for whatever adventures await them after graduation. As the father of a Class of 2022 grad, let me share how the city’s public schools prepared my daughter to make her way in the world.
She started in the third grade, in a district that enrolled Hispanic, Asian, African American, and white students, in that numerical order. She made friends easily in and out of class, and many of them were promoted with her to middle school. As their personalities developed, their interests diverged. Some played sports or joined the band or signed up for educational clubs. As her old friends made new friends, they cross-pollinated to form a web of relationships that gave her a sense of belonging.
Young parents moving into town … will find our public schools to be one of the most valuable benefits of their investments in San Leandro.
She found mentors from the start. Her third-grade teacher, who also had her in the fourth, recognized her eagerness and ability and enlisted my daughter to tutor classmates who may have spoken languages other than English at home.
In middle school she had a tough-love English teacher who required students to work in teams but make individual presentations in class, the overarching lesson being that learning was not a competition but an opportunity to shine. Her history teacher had students crouch under their desks as he read from Twelve Years A Slave to help them imagine being chained in the hold of a ship and brought unwillingly to these shores.
That same teacher also coached a wrestling team that has always been popular with students and well-regarded in regional and state competitions. This year, the girls’ team won the state wrestling championship. Even though I winced every time I attended a match, I admired her dedication and the physical confidence she gained from training.
Even so, I breathed easier in high school when she opted for the cross-country team her AP biology teacher coached. She went on practice runs several times a week with a pack of friends, old and new, and they hung out together on the grass between races.
As a divorced dad, I rarely shared her day-to-day experiences like her mom, so I was thrilled when she asked me to review her college application essays. She was one of roughly 25 percent of the graduating seniors in her class who applied to the University of California and among the two-thirds of those applicants who were admitted.
What I think made her essays stand out was how they praised the teachers who introduced her to so many new interests and the gratitude she expressed for the student experiences that enabled her to form friendships that may last a lifetime. In a district with a 92 percent graduation rate, versus the 85 percent state average, she wrote about continuing to tutor all the way through high school. “I not only want to be a good student,” she told admissions officials, “But a good classmate.”
Young parents moving into town should feel reassured that the city’s schools create an environment that is both excellent and egalitarian. The schools enjoy a tradition of public support, as exemplified by the parents of past grads who help run groups such as the San Leandro Scholarship Foundation and San Leandro Education Foundation.
While past performance is no guarantee of future results, I think new residents with big mortgages will find our public schools to be one of the most valuable benefits of their investments in San Leandro.