Head of advanced learning program at Sacramento high school resigns. Is this the end of HISP?

The future of a highly rigorous honors program is in question at a Sacramento high school after its coordinator announced her resignation at the end of the school year.

Ellen Wong earlier this month announced to parents her intent to step down from her position as Humanities and International Studies Program (HISP) coordinator in June if circumstances at C.K. McClatchy High School and the Sacramento City Unified School District do not improve.

Wong declined an interview with The Sacramento Bee.

Several students and parents addressed the Sacramento City Unified School District board at its Jan. 16 meeting to express their support for Wong and their concerns about the future of HISP.

“When (teachers) feel they can no longer work in a toxic environment established by our school’s administration, students like us have their backs,” McClatchy senior and HISP student RJ Czajkowski told the board.

Since its inception in 1985, HISP has attracted students from all over the Sacramento City Unified School District. The competitive magnet program, which accepts 140 freshman out of hundreds of applicants each year, prepares students for college using college-level materials.

The four-year curriculum offers a “unique global perspective on learning and understanding” and “prepares HISP students for success at any college or university in the country,” according to its website.

An email circulating to parents through a Facebook group, calling for urgent action to save the HISP program, said Wong’s resignation stemmed from several issues, including:

• Teacher vacancies at McClatchy and several other schools in the district, paired with the inability to recruit qualified teachers
• A lack of confidence in school leadership
• A lack of support by school officials of Superintendent Jorge Aguilar’s vision of equity and access for the HISP program.

Wong’s announcement came days after the McClatchy student newspaper, The Prospector, and The Sacramento Bee reported funds collected for a class gift went missing and were later returned at McClatchy High, sparking concerns about the high school administration and the district’s failure to take immediate action.

In 2018, a HISP student submitted a highly controversial science fair project which hypothesized that if the “average IQs of blacks, Southeast Asians and Hispanics are lower than the average IQs of non-Hispanic whites and Northeast Asians, then the racial disproportionality in (HISP) is justified.”

The project was removed from display.

Problems at McClatchy High School

Aguilar said in a letter to families this week that many of the recent concerns raised at McClatchy High are personnel matters, preventing the district from commenting, but added the district plans to engage with parents, faculty and staff in the coming weeks. Aguilar’s letter did not clarify whether HISP’s future is in jeopardy, but spoke to future efforts to make it accessible to more students.

“We must take systematic and intentional steps to correct it in a way that better reflects the composition of our community and maintains the highest standards possible, which HISP has done since its establishment,” Aguilar’s letter read. “Among these efforts have been to look at how we can better support students in order to increase the pool of students eligible to meet admissions criteria for programs such as HISP.”

School board member Lisa Murawski, whose trustee area includes McClatchy High, wrote in a Jan. 16 letter to parents that she received a “flood of emails” and that there are no plans to end the HISP program.

“I also feel your frustration and anger, and your feelings that McClatchy is not living up to its potential,” read the letter. “I deeply respect Ms. Wong’s professional dedication and decades-long commitment to the McClatchy community. And I agree with her, and with you, that there are issues at McClatchy that must be addressed.”

Still, concerns among HISP students and parents remain.

“Our teachers have assured us that no one is willing to serve as coordinator if Ms. Wong steps down,” Czajkowski said at the board meeting. “By failing to address the root of the problem behind this issue, you will be effectively shutting down the program at the end of the year.”

McClatchy parent Terri Hardy told the board she reached out to Wong after receiving her email with her plans to resign.

“I hope that all of you have been to McClatchy and visited those classrooms and seen what a treasure she is for our community,” Hardy said. “She said it had become an untenable situation and she could no longer do her job.”

Hardy asked Sacramento City Unified board members and the superintendent to take immediate steps to resolve issues at the high school so students would not lose Wong or the program.

Other parents said they have had enough.

A petition with more than 1,000 signatures was circulating in January citing the challenges the high school recently faced and demanding action from the school district.

“My question to all of you is, when will you step in and do something about these problems?” asked Mindy Herrera, a parent of a current McClatchy student and incoming freshman. “When will enough be enough? Because quite frankly I have had enough. I am so fed up that if we were to vote tomorrow on Measure H, my vote would be no’ And I say this to you because it’s upsetting to me and it pains me to say that I would vote no, especially because I see first hand the peril that our schools are in.”

Measure H is a $750 million school facility bond on the March 2020 ballot. Sacramento voters will decide whether to provide funding to upgrade older schools in the district with modern science labs and classrooms.

This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 5:00 AM.