Working-Class Kids and Visionary Educators in a Multiracial High School: A Story of Belonging

In the 1960s and 1970s-when many communities resisted school integration and schools held low expectations for working-class kids and constricted teachers' autonomy-educators and students at a multiracial public high school in California collaborated to achieve something remarkable: they created a cohesive community that gave students a powerful sense of belonging. Over its 25-year life, the student leaders of Sunnyvale High School worked with visionary staff to reduce violence, broaden and enrich the curriculum to include US Black history and Mexican American literature, and increase girls' access to sports. Working together, they fostered a collective sense of pride, persistence, and possibility that fed the success of students and graduates in careers and in communities. How did adults and youth forge such a powerful ethos of engagement and mutual responsibility, enabling so many to thrive? At a time when issues of racial and gender inequality are arguably as heated as they were half a century ago, what lessons does the school offer? In this book, the story of Sunnyvale High School is told by the students and educators who shaped it and made it meaningful. They attest to the lifelong impact of their shared experience.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. A Vale in the Sun 2. Spirit by Design 3. Athletics before Title IX 4. A Fighting School 5. Tensions of Connecting across Difference 6. Was it a “Race Riot”? 7. Transformative Changes 8. Informal Support Bolsters Resilience 9. Legacies and Lessons Appendix Bibliography

About the Author :
Karen V. Hansen is Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University. Nicholas Monroe holds a PhD in sociology and works at Gartner.

Review :
Why do many of the graduates report that this California working class high school saved their lives? Karen Hansen brings her unique perspective as a graduate, as well as a sociologist, to enable us to understand the challenges and powerful interactions among students and faculty. This is a book worth reading. [Dr. Hansen and Monroe rely] on a remarkably taut writing style to tell a story of Sunnyvale High School in which they literally bring the school to life. The reader painlessly acquires the basic structural information about the institution, ranging from school district standards, annual budgets, and demographics of the city and county. These necessary skeletal elements are seamlessly tied to a riveting story of both group and individual lives, choices, and consequences within the campus and community. This is not a polemical or boisterous work, and yet it commands sustained attention. It is a model of significant and interesting writing and research about how public schools work-and how students, teachers, administrators, parents, and neighbors-interact. This book confirms the importance of high school as a central feature of 'coming of age' in the United States. What makes an effective school? Hansen and Monroe's book gives us a uniquely intimate portrait of a California high school that had a magical impact on its diverse working-class students during the turbulent 1970s. We see the secret sauce in vivid oral case histories of teachers and former students, an analysis of the path-breaking curriculum and pedagogy, and descriptions of how educators connected with students in counseling, athletics, cheerleading, marching band, and more-culminating in a list of ten school-effectiveness factors that's as helpful as any I've seen. Sunnyvale High in California had none of the advantages of many schools. In a middle-class district, this school-with racially-diverse students from blue-collar families-was widely disparaged. Yet, in this remarkable book, many graduates offer a different picture as they reflect on the gifts teachers gave them decades earlier. Educators encouraged participation in meaningful extracurricular activities, and helped the students feel as if they belonged. In short, educators centered relationships. Easy to read and deeply interesting, Working-Class Kids and Visionary Educators in a Multiracial High School is an inspirational story of a high school which helped students succeed against the odds. An impassioned, well-researched history of a groundbreaking California public school.