(Part II) Can Schools in Gentrifying Neighborhoods Become More Diverse, Too?

This piece was written by Kyle Spencer and produced by the Hechinger Report where it was originally published. It is reproduced here with permission. Click here for Part I, which chronicles the efforts of organizations in San Francisco, CA to come up with a cooperative approach between cities in the midst of gentrification and school districts in less gentrified communities.

School board member Shamann Walton says these projects are also an opportunity to invest in schools that are often neglected. “We want to make sure our schools grow and get better with these new developments,” he said, noting that the city is working to integrate schools in other redeveloping communities as well.

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As part of that broader effort, the school district has introduced Mandarin-immersion programs and strong science departments , features that are popular with middle class families, at schools in and around the transforming Bayview neighborhood. Among these schools is the STEM-focused Willie L. Brown Jr. Middle School, which will open this fall. School officials have tried to encourage middle class parents to enroll their children at Willie L. Brown by guaranteeing them a slot – a sort of “golden ticket” – into their high school of choice if they attend the school. It’s a big sell in a school district with a highly competitive high school entrance process.

Malcolm X is also getting attention from the school

district. It got a boost a few years ago when it was placed on a list of schools in need of intensive support. That allowed the district to pump money and resources in, adding a full-time literacy coach and a district facilitator to keep track of how students are doing and what strategies are working to keep them on target.

In turn, the school hired a new principal and got grant money to purchase new iPads for each classroom. It retooled its reading program to be more appealing to both reluctant and voracious readers and to better serve students at all reading levels. The new system includes book bins inside each classroom, allowing students to choose what they want to read, rather than an all-class system, in which everyone reads the same book.

School officials also tried to create a sense of community by instituting features common in upper middle class schools such as game nights, science nights and movie nights. The school added a robotics program, a garden in the schoolyard and, this year, fourth and fifth graders spent months designing an expansive outdoor classroom.

Working with the National Organization of Minority Architects and the Center for Cities and Schools, students spent months determining the décor for the outdoor classroom, building planting beds, walkways and walls.

On a recent morning this past spring, the school’s revitalization efforts were on display. Inside their classroom, 10 fourth graders were musing over the ideas they had come up with for a playhouse that will accompany the outdoor classroom. Some wanted the playhouse to be decorated with large geometric shapes. Others thought it should include thick, painted plywood flowers. There was talk of a superhero theme, and a discussion of flooring options.

Buss, with the Center for Cities and Schools, stood by a cardboard panel that incorporated all of the student’s ideas. As they waited to vote, they were given one last chance to promote their ideas.

“Do you want to talk about your idea?” Buss asked a boy sitting at a table near the front of the room. “You’re lobbying for it. Talk it up.”

The boy mumbled something nearly inaudible. And Buss went on to the next student, who wanted to incorporate several themes into one playhouse, a collaborative idea that had been bantered about earlier in the day.

“If we do that, we can have a floor,” the girl, Genesis Martinez said. “And we can put the flowers on the floor.”

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Nearby, in a fifth-grade classroom, teacher Laura Walker was showing her students a documentary about their historic neighborhood. It was developed in the 1940s during the Great Migration, when African-American men flocked to the area with their families to work in the now-defunct naval shipyard.

Walker said the film was part of a social studies unit on migration and exploration, which would include lessons on the Vikings, Christopher Columbus, and the American explorers Lewis and Clark.

Families whose children attend the school say they have noticed a difference. Lisa Afalava, a mother with a fifth grader at the school, says Malcolm X offers impressive afterschool programs, including Mandarin classes. The school, she says, has worked to improve attendance by offering students awards for coming to school on time, and has created a warm learning environment.

“The staff is really passionate about the kids,” she said.

Others, like Brenda Rios, whose son graduated from the school and now attends KIPP Bayview Academy, a highly regarded charter nearby, said the staff members excel at helping to place students at good middle schools.

But Diane Gray, the executive director of the Bayview Association for Youth, which offers academic support to students in the area, says the school needs to do a better job of promoting itself.

Gray said San Francisco schools that have been successful at diversifying their populations as their neighborhoods have grown more diverse have targeted preschools, looped in middle class parents, and worked aggressively with developers, getting their names on brochures and fact-sheets, and getting teachers to attend countless community meetings.

“I have no doubt that the same thing can happen here. But there has to be a lot of work done on both sides of the fence,” she said.

Across the country, efforts to integrate public schools and keep them integrated have been fraught. Many school districts are finding themselves rapidly re-segregating once they are released from federal desegregation orders put in place in the ’70s and ’80s, some districts have dipped back to pre-Civil Rights era segregation numbers. San Francisco was released from its race-based federal desegregation order in 2001. It has tried to promote more integration with a race-neutral school choice program, but with mixed results.

In 2005, former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom added a new post to his staff, a special advisor to address issues related to education and families. Hydra Mendoza, who has held the

post for the past 10 years, also sits the on the school board. She works to create collaborations between the city’s housing authority and its school district, keeping key city officials apprised of new developments and telling them about development plans that might present opportunities to improve struggling schools. “We’re building stronger ties between the school district and the city,” she said.

But no one thinks turning Malcolm X into a coveted school will be easy. The school’s poor academic performance makes it a hard sell to middle-income parents. The number of students proficient in reading dipped from 48% to 25% between 2011 and 2013. In math, the dip was from 63% proficient to 48%. The school lost more than 17% of its student body between 2009 and 2014. And teachers say some of the students who remain are homeless or living in unstable conditions. Teachers believe the construction in the neighborhood is partially to blame for the decline in enrollment: Some families who lived in parts of the neighborhood being rebuilt relocated.

First grade teacher Anthony Arinwine says the loss of students and the poor test scores have given the school a branding problem, even with longtime Bayview residents. “It has a lot of reputation to overcome,” he said.

But for Ray McClenter, who finished fourth grade this spring, and recently moved into one of the new Bayview apartments with his family, there is much to be gained if the city can lure newcomers to the struggling school. “If more kids come,” he said, “I can make new friends.”