WORKING-CLASS KIDS AND VISIONARY EDUCATORS IN A MULTIRACIAL HIGH SCHOOL

A pair of sociologists explore the unheralded multicultural legacy of a 1960s and ’70s-era California High School.

Opened from 1956 to 1981, California’s Sunnyvale High School “was built for the baby boom,” write authors Hansen and Monroe. Despite the city of Sunnyvale’s relative affluence, with ties to the defense industry and nascent Silicon Valley, SHS was seen by many in the community as “poor and rowdy.” Yet, to its multicultural attendees, which included white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian American students, it “provided a refuge” that was a half-century ahead of its time. The school offered groundbreaking academic instruction for the 1970s, including a Black history class taught by a beloved and dynamic teacher, as well as a “robust program” in the creative and performing arts. It offered vocational education, such as one of Silicon Valley’s first electronics classes, which “dignified manual labor” and prepared students for career success. More than just its innovative curriculum, SHS’s visionary leadership and staff prioritized student leadership, providing ample opportunities for student-driven decision-making that fostered individual empowerment and community building. In an era often defined by racial tension, especially in public schools, SHS’s diverse student and faculty body were remarkably unified. A graduate of Sunnyvale High, author Hansen credits the school with fostering her intellectual curiosity; she became a professor of sociology at Brandeis University and the author of multiple academic books. In this impassioned volume, she combines her scholarly background with her personal connections to the school. Based largely on interviews of more than 50 SHS graduates and teachers, in addition to archival material, the book stitches together a layered, rich history of the successful multicultural high school. A recent Ph.D. graduate from Brandeis, co-author Monroe is a former middle-school history teacher who taught in Chicago and Gary, Indiana, and helps provide commentary about how Sunnyvale High’s “cutting edge” approach to multicultural education and student empowerment can inform 21st­-century schools today.

An impassioned, well-researched history of a groundbreaking California public school.