Our recent visit to Del Lago Academy opened my eyes to a world of public schooling that I thought did not exist. A campus where every student has an iPad, where there are no bells, where the campus is immaculate and where a majority of the students seem to be enjoying themselves. The campus was great, I would have never guessed I was walking around a high school had I not known before-hand. Del Lago is an excellent example of pushing for equity in the classroom and keeping the campus as heterogeneous as the community around it. I have heard the argument before that academy-type schools only attract the parents of children that have time to be looking into better or alternative educational options for their children. People that follow this train of thought typically tell me that academies and charter schools basically just become schools for more well off children. I have never heard someone say the schools of choice are not better campuses with better atmospheres. What they say is that this is great but who actually gets to go here? Is this a school for the kid with a college educated and well-off helicopter parent that jumped on the waiting list immediately to seize a better opportunity for their child? It seems more likely that these types of parents would find their way to that list than the parents working two jobs that hardly have time to even ask their children about school. Del Lago swept this argument aside with ease as they enforced a policy where the makeup of the school mirrored the make up of the community. If there were 65 percent of families below the poverty line in the surrounding area then 65 percent of the student body came from families below the poverty line as well. This all sounds great and if there was enough money to make every school a Del Lago it would be great.
Here is the issue. The other campuses in the area let alone the state, did not get the bond money that turned Del Lago into a utopia-esque high school. So while the students at Del Lago are experiencing a quality of high school that I wish every student would be able to enjoy, students at other public schools are lucky if there are even enough textbooks in the class. We do not have the money to make every public school Del Lago. That is simply not feasible. So then why do we put all of our money into one school rather than distributing it among the schools within the community. Where is the equity there? Where is the equity for the many students that will end up putting their name on the Del Lago waiting list only to be turned away because of capacity issues? Those students will end up on campuses with broken desks and teachers too afraid to max their copy budget to provide students with helpful materials. Maybe no school would live up to the beauty and function of Del Lago if we distributed this money but the overall standard of education in the community would advance farther than if we focus that bond money into one school that has a capacity of only 1600 students. There is no equity in maintaining a castle amongst schools strung together with dilapidated trailers.
Here is the issue. The other campuses in the area let alone the state, did not get the bond money that turned Del Lago into a utopia-esque high school. So while the students at Del Lago are experiencing a quality of high school that I wish every student would be able to enjoy, students at other public schools are lucky if there are even enough textbooks in the class. We do not have the money to make every public school Del Lago. That is simply not feasible. So then why do we put all of our money into one school rather than distributing it among the schools within the community. Where is the equity there? Where is the equity for the many students that will end up putting their name on the Del Lago waiting list only to be turned away because of capacity issues? Those students will end up on campuses with broken desks and teachers too afraid to max their copy budget to provide students with helpful materials. Maybe no school would live up to the beauty and function of Del Lago if we distributed this money but the overall standard of education in the community would advance farther than if we focus that bond money into one school that has a capacity of only 1600 students. There is no equity in maintaining a castle amongst schools strung together with dilapidated trailers.