How I Redistricted Myself

This is a true story.

In the summer just after my 16th birthday, my mom and me (and my five younger siblings) found ourselves, through a series of bad decisions on her part, in a housing project in east San Jose, Ca.

(My mom was getting child support from three ex-husbands, plus welfare, plus charity from her church, but she was never any good at managing money, so when she managed to gather her children together (we spent most of our childhood with grandparents and relatives), we were always dirt poor).

From the second-story window of the dilapidated bedroom I shared with my brothers, I could see the high school I'd be attending in the fall, William C. Overfelt High.

I wanted to see what I was getting into, so I scouted things out during summer school. I had been living with my grandmother for the previous couple of years, and attending an excellent public school, so I knew at once that Overfelt was not going to work out for me. The kids were hostile toward me (literally the only white kid there), hostile toward school and hostile toward their teachers. (This phenomenon--a rejection of all things educational by poverty-stricken inner-city families--is, in other words, not new).

I wanted none of it. To the southeast, about 3 miles away, was Silver Creek High, which (I learned through playing sandlot baseball and pickup basketball) had a much more diverse student population and a better academic reputation. But it was 3 miles away, I had no car, and I had no paperwork to show I was eligible to attend. If I tried to register at Silver Creek, certainly they would send me straight back to Overfelt, right?

I decided to give it a try--there was no way I was going to Overfelt. Without telling my mother (she would not learn about this until much later), I set off on foot for the first day of my junior year in high school, got a couple blocks from home, took a sharp right turn and walked to Silver Creek.

On the way there, I took note of a picturesque street (Nickel Ave) in a much, MUCH better neighborhood. I walked down the street and took a long look at a couple of the street numbers (I was looking for a gap). I then walked the remaining distance to Silver Creek, and into the Registrar's office.

I told the Registrar that my mother couldn't register me because she was working, and I gave her a home address on Nickel Ave.--an address I had invented for a house that didn't exist. (I knew this was a risky strategy, but I bet that a municipal school system would take an entire year to figure out my fraud, and I was right).

It worked. I spent the whole year in Silver Creek, and was a standout student, a good volleyball player and had major roles in both of the school's plays.

I had redistricted myself to a better school because, even at 16, I knew the difference between a school where I could succeed, and which was worth my efforts, and a school where I would be ridiculed for trying hard.

Throughout the school year, I lied to everyone about where I lived. When parents of friends (or friend with cars) drove me somewhere, I always had them drop me off at the corner of Nickel Ave. and S. King Road, telling them that I would be fine walking home from there. (In fact, I would have to walk a mile and a half from that point to get to our drab apartment).

I never once told anyone--even my closest friends--where I really lived, because I was terrified that if I did, I'd be found out and sent to the bad school near my home.

So when I say I think parents who cheat the system to get their kids into Inman or Grady should be given amnesty, you can see where I'm coming from. I did what they're doing, and for the same reasons.

If, 30-some years ago, the San Jose Municipal School District could not fix Overfelt High School because the households sending their children to Overfelt were uninterested in embracing education as a value, how likely is APS to be able to fix its wretched south side schools today?

Or tomorrow?

Those of you who are taking great risks and breaking laws to free your children from APS schools where too little learning takes place, you are my friends, and I am your friend.