June Jordan School for Equity

June Jordan School for Equity was explicitly designed as a school for equity and social justice. It was founded through a community organizing effort by a group of teachers, parents, and youth, with the goal of providing better educational options for students who were not being served well in traditional schools. The group aimed to be a part of a social justice movement to provide a high-quality education to all youth in the city—not just those from certain neighborhoods or backgrounds. Social justice and equity are reflected in the key design features of the school, which we are moving toward fully implementing a safe, personalized learning environment with a sense of belonging. We offer a small overall school size since the school is a Small School by Design. We support mental and physical health support for students through our Wellness Center.

June Jordan School for Equity believes that active, in-depth learning leads to both joy and high achievement. We have a performance assessment system which describes what we want students to know and be able to do by the time they graduate. Our performance assessment system includes what we call Masterpieces, which are a graduation requirement, as well as Portfolios, which are a requirement to move from the Junior Institute (9th/10th grade program) to the Senior Institute (11th/12th grade program). Both Masterpieces and Portfolios are rooted in classroom work, help drive classroom instruction, and include a final committee presentation and defense. Each Masterpiece/Portfolio task is scored on a rubric with six criteria, which we call our Habits of Mind. These Habits embody the cross-cutting skill areas which we believe will enable students to perform well and succeed.

At June Jordan School for Equity, we believe that teachers are most accountable for results when they have promised those results to families they know and care about, and thus do not want to disappoint. This relationship-based accountability not only requires a different kind of school, it also requires re-thinking of traditional school district systems and structures. Rather than relying on high-level state and district officials to determine whether our school is doing well, and enforcing higher performance when necessary, we believe the pyramid should be flipped on its head, with parents and students as the ultimate arbiters of a school's success.