¡Adelante!

By Anonymous / Winter 2023

Some of my fondest memories from elementary school are a byproduct of our biweekly trips exploring Santa Barbara and its surrounding with the help of the Wilderness Youth Project (WYP). Every Thursday in sixth grade, half of the class would go out to play games in the mountains, learn about the ocean, or explore the flora and fauna around us. It was free dress day on these days because it was a lot harder to move around in a uniform. I got to see so much of Santa Barbara that I never would have seen because of the Wilderness Youth Project. This program, like many others over the years, was donated to us mainly due to the lack of financial security the elementary school I attended had.

I attended Adelante Charter school, formerly known as Cesar Chavez Charter School from kindergarten to sixth grade. When everyone hears Adelante Charter School, the name of my elementary school, their minds go to a nice private school when the only similar thing we shared with private schools was probably uniforms. Adelante is a very small dual immersion elementary school that shares a campus with another school on the eastside of Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is a well known vacation town, with mountains on one side of the 101 freeway and the beaches on the other. Montecito and Hope Ranch house some extremely wealthy people from celebrities, uber wealthy, and even two members of the royal family. On the other side of Santa Barbara’s wealth, is lack of it.

I was in second grade when we marched from the school to the Santa Barbara School District’s office. This was a peaceful march, and although people like Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. protested peacefully on a grand scale, we were taught about what they did so we could learn it in our own lives. The school district wanted to close Adelante for a reason I did not learn until I was older. Our standardized test scores in English were not as high as the district would like them to be. Their natural conclusion was that Adelante was not doing a proper job in educating us. The fact that the majority of the school were first generation kids whose families were from Mexico and native Spanish speakers and were testing in both Spanish and English was not taken into consideration at all. With such little funds, support, and time from the school district and other people who were supposed to help, of course it was going to take more time to improve English grades but it did not mean we were stupid.

I did not understand that it would not have mattered. What mattered was the makeup of the school and what they were doing. It was the only school in Santa Barbara that was dual immersion, but it was not viewed as an amazing opportunity. It was looked down upon, with an attitude of superiority from those on the outside. My parents were told that my brother and I would be hurt by gang members, exposed to too much violence, and receive a poor education. There was a sentiment of superiority that came from these people. They now tell my parents how much they wish their kids were fluent in Spanish or at least another language.

This way of thinking comes from the toxic way the poor and working class are viewed. Adelante was a minority dominated school that provided kids with opportunities for their parents who did not speak english to engage in their child’s students school that maybe would not have been possible otherwise. Adelante was creating an environment that could carry over to home life. My friend's parents, as well as mine, emphasized the importance of education and the opportunities it could provide. People on the outside did not like this. Like we saw on the diagram in class, those at the top wanted to keep themselves there regardless if it was the King or others. Not in such a direct sense but that is the system that was in play. If the dual immersion education was cut off then it was just another small way to enforce the system that was put into place so long ago.

As I reflect back on my elementary school experience I realize that the criticism and the attempt to close the school was driven by fear, fear of something different. It saddens me to think that a school as versatile and different as Adelante faced years of having to prove its worth because some people decided the school was not doing things “the right way.” I benefited immensely from attending Adelante, but people were reluctant to accept a different style of teaching, and people looked down upon the school and those of us who attended it.