Students Rally to Save Balboa High School

The San Francisco Unified School district plans to move Leadership High, a charter School, into the Balboa High School facility. This is a bad idea on all fronts, and will endanger Balboa High School. Balboa is located in the southeast part of the city, an area that is slated for so called urban renewal, at the expense of the communities that currently live there. The Balboa student population is primarily students of color from working class communities, and this attack comes hard on the heels of rampant school closures that are primarily affecting San Francisco’s African American community.

On Tuesday, April 25, over 200 Balboa Students, as well as many teachers, alumni, and family members turned out for a rally at the school board to call upon them to reject this plan, to protect Balboa High School, and to find another home for Leadership High School. It is inspiring to see a student body so energized and proud of their school, working with their teachers and community members, and engaging in the political process to save their school. This is the kind of school community we want…engaged, empowered, and unified. It’s worth noting as well that as much as half of Balboa’s student body stayed away from school on Monday, May 1s as part of the national day without an immigrant boycott/general strike.

The matter will be before the Board of Education on Tuesday, May 9, 2006, and they are expected to make a final decision. Community members who want to speak out on behalf of Balboa are encouraged to attend. The meeting is at 7 p.m. in The Irving G. Breyer Board Meeting Room at
555 Franklin Street, First Floor, San Francisco, California 94102. Following photos of the school’s rally at the school board last week is a sample letter to send to School board members, as well as contact information. Please take a few minutes to act on this. How the students and families in our city are treated affects all of us.