School diversity at SJND
As I begin my second year here at SJND, I am getting a better sense of those qualities which define our school. Certainly, our small size (current enrollment is 417 students in grades 9-12) is a defining characteristic of SJND. This smaller size allows for a sense of community and family that nurtures our students in significant ways. In fact, our Spring 2008 alumni Update magazine was devoted to this theme of community. I invite you to read it to find out more stories of how we live community at SJND.
Today, I want to write about another defining characteristic of our school that we have not talked about much and that is our school’s diversity.
As a school located in the Bay Area, we are proud of the fact that the student population of our school mirrors that of our diverse Bay Area community. In fact, SJND does not have any one racial group larger than 25% of our school, an astonishing achievement for any Catholic high school. The diversity of our school encompasses not only racial diversity, but also socioeconomic, cultural, educational and other markers of diversity that are less readily seen. We pride ourselves on the fact that we have diversity that works.
At many schools, even schools that are tremendously diverse, it is not uncommon to see students quickly separate and balkanize by race. At many high schools, all one needs to do is step into the student cafeteria at lunch to see how students separate into tables quite neatly by skin color. Perhaps it’s only human to want to be with those who are like us, but often times, diverse schools have diversity in name only.
At SJND, seeing this division is rare. Our school is too small for students to easily separate; it’s hard to hide at SJND. On the other hand, our school is not so big that students feel that they have to retreat to what they know in order to feel comfortable or supported. It is that first quality I wrote about – community – that helps our school’s diversity to work. We have wonderful students, students committed to learning and who have the support of their parents. When you put together that mix of community and diversity, the end result is place that works to form and transform our students to be people who, in the words of our school’s Vision Statement, “will be prepared to exercise leadership roles in their adult lives and foster democratic principles and Christian values of social justice in a diverse and technologically changing world.”
Tags: diversity, high school diversity, multiculturalism
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