A decade ago, community leaders made a commitment to meet a challenge posed by Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr.'s Commission on Education and the City's Future:
To remake schools that had become "too crowded, too big, too impersonal and incapable of preparing students for a world that is radically different from what it was a half-century ago."
Now, the Sacramento City Unified School District has completed the first stage. It has shrunk the size of the comprehensive high schools and reorganized them into "small learning communities" of 300 to 500 students each.
An example is the Corporate Academy at Hiram Johnson High. The teachers work across disciplines and integrate the theme of business into academic classes. Students are running a campus store and, every year, work with their partner, the Franchise Tax Board, to do community service by helping people complete their tax forms.
The district also has opened five small, stand-alone high schools with no more than 500 students each.
One is Health Professions High. It emphasizes biology, chemistry and physics, and has been a pioneer in integrating health-related materials into other subject areas (English, mathematics, history, geography, drama). Students also shadow health professionals and do internships. Working in teams, they produce two research projects a year.
To date, the principal achievements of the high school reform effort are increased graduation rates and decreased dropout rates. Another is that more students are meeting requirements for admission to the University of California and California State University systems.
And Sacramento's small learning communities, writes consulting firm Cambridge Education, have promoted a "culture of care and concern" for students. The small schools, in particular, "tend to display more vision, passion and commitment to meeting the needs of all children."
This is good news, indeed, at a time of deficits and declining enrollments in California's public schools.
Now Sac City Unified is poised to move to the next stage. The district already is among 10 districts statewide to receive planning grants from ConnectEd/Irvine Foundation, and it proposes to:
• Go beyond pockets of excellence.
• Expand partnerships.
• Integrate academic courses and work-based, technical learning experiences.
• Increase challenge and rigor in lessons.
• Bridge the transition between middle and high schools.
• Prepare students for both college and career.
The aim in this next stage is to "make clear the vital connection from middle school to post-secondary college and career."
Within five to seven years, the district hopes to have in place a "structure of well-articulated pathways" built around particular sectors, such as building and environmental design; engineering; health and medical; energy; tourism and recreation; public services; and arts and entertainment. The district will begin teacher training to develop the lesson plans this summer.
Sac City Unified has built a foundation with its smaller schools and is well on its way to providing students with more options on the path to college or careers.
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