Is Logan Memorial ‘Going to Be Another Lincoln?’

Logan Memorial Educational Campus was a dream come true for many in the community. The gleaming complex was the most expensive building project in San Diego Unified’s history, carrying a nearly $200 million price tag. But it wasn’t supposed to be just a pricey set of walls. 

Last week, Logan Heights community members gathered at the nearby public library with a list of grievances. Mothers with strollers filtered in as volunteers set up a table with pan dulce, donuts, scones and coffee. Volunteers distributed printouts that detailed their frustrations with how San Diego Unified had rolled out the school.  

The community was scared programs the district had promised were at risk of being cut by administrators. Familiar concerns about student safety reared their head and parents expressed worry that staff morale was low because of a muddy and inconsistent leadership structure. 

In all, they feared the grand Logan Memorial experiment was falling apart just as it was beginning. 

“What’s the use of having a beautiful, expensive building if there are no resources for what’s going on inside?” one parent asked. 

… 

The planning for Logan Memorial started nearly a decade ago, when the district announced it would be building a new school. In the early years the scope, and the price tag, of the project grew and grew. The district even brought in researchers from the Harvard University School of Education to advise. But what was even better was that much of the planning was in partnership with the community. Some of the meetings took place in that very room. 

When things were finalized, the district pitched Logan Memorial as an innovative “cradle to career,” experience. It would begin serving the community even before children were born with prenatal care for families and house schools meant for children from 6 months old all the way through high school. It would feature a Montessori curriculum in earlier grades, a dual language immersion program and project-based learning in later grades. 

It was bold. Visionary, even. During the high school’s christening a year and a half ago, San Diego Unified board member Richard Barrera said, “We see this model as something that we want to extend across the district, and we see it as a model for public education.” 

But the school also represented a mea culpa of sorts on the part of the district. The neighborhood had long weathered struggling schools better known for their rough reputation than for academic achievement. Logan Memorial was also the first high school Logan Heights had ever had.  

In the run-up to, and shortly after, the school’s flashy grand opening, district officials spoke plainly: San Diego Unified hadn’t held up its end of the bargain. For too long, the district hadn’t worked as hard as it should have to provide academic opportunities to the area’s children. 

“Logan has one of the highest concentrations of students any place in the district … But the district has underinvested both in terms of the physical facilities, but also just programmatically,” Barrera said at the high school’s opening event. Logan Memorial falls within the subdistrict he represents.  

This new school, though, was different. The community had been patient, and now it was the district’s time to deliver. Logan Memorial and its state-of-the-art facilities, its Montessori curriculum and its Mariachi band showed the district cared. 

But at Friday’s meeting, it was clear the community felt the district still wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain. 

Veri Chavarin, the head of Logan Memorial’s Parent, Teacher and Student Association, set the tone.  

“The purpose of this meeting is not only to share our concerns, but to devise an action plan to ensure the programs that were promised come to fruition,” she said. 

One by one, community members voiced concerns. Many spoke in Spanish, which was translated by Chris Sandoval, a pastor at the nearby Servant Church of San Diego.  

Some people spoke about having been promised a dual-immersion program that hadn’t been created, an offering that makes sense in the overwhelmingly Latino community of Logan Heights. Last year, 95 percent of the school’s students were Latino.  

Others vented about the school not having implemented the planned project-based learning model. There were worries that the high cost of the Montessori program would lead the school to phase it out. Others had frustrations with the “El Nido,” or the nest, the school serving children from 6 months to 3 years old. 

Barrera, who was at the meeting, nodded dutifully throughout. 

“She remembers (the district) promising that everything would be better, not just the building, but the resources and the money,” Sandoval said, translating for one attendee. “She asked if this is going to be another Lincoln High School where the outside was pretty but nothing changed on the inside. I think a lot of us know that story and (the district) promised her that it wouldn’t be like.” 

Attendees nodded and sighed in agreement. This was the reality that most scared them, and why they’d mobilized to hold the district’s feet to the fire. 

The Lincoln High School comparison was a potent one. After years of turmoil, the district bankrolled a complete rebuild of the school, hoping to wash away the trouble of the past with new facilities and some cans of paint. Like Logan Memorial, at the time, that rebuild had been the most expensive construction project the district had embarked on. 

But when Lincoln reopened, the school was plagued by much of the same turmoil it had always faced. The new programs implemented were washed away by years of leadership instability, safety concerns and a perpetually shifting academic plan all contributed to low enrollment and even lower performance.  

Like the Lincoln situation, many of the concerns expressed at the meeting reflected what families and students faced before the new school’s creation. Memorial Prep, the middle school that once sat where Logan Memorial now sits, long had a reputation as an unsafe campus. Those safety concerns contributed to Memorial Prep once being the most avoided school in the district. 

The new school, and the new programming was supposed to solve that, and in the process draw families back. But those discipline issues have persisted. In the 2022-23 school year, Logan Memorial’s nearly 14 percent suspension rate was more than five times higher than the district average.  

Bullying, in particular, was top of mind for many parents. One mother said her child had attended Logan Memorial since kindergarten and dealt with bullies the entire time. Despite repeated emails and phone calls, counselors didn’t seem to be doing anything. The situation had gotten so bad that the family considered just moving their child to a new school.  

Finally, the woman’s husband decided their son should take things into his own hands. 

“‘I’m going to give you permission to punch them,’” the woman recalled her husband telling their child. “He said, ‘you’re going to punch them in the nose hard enough that you draw blood so that everyone can see they can’t mess with you,’” she said. 

So, the boy followed his father’s advice. The woman said only after that did his son’s grades and self-esteem begin to improve. 

That family wasn’t the only one who’d considered ditching Logan Memorial altogether.  

One man said both his children attend Logan Memorial, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be sending them back next year. His older son had gotten accepted to Albert Einstein Academy, a charter school nearby, the year before, but he’d had a change of heart. His children had been with the program from the beginning, and he wanted to see it through. 

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“But what the future holds, we don’t know. There’s a lot of question marks” he said. “I think we just need to continue to voice (our concerns) and be here to support each other and support what we were promised and try to make it a reality.” 

It was clear none of the parents really wanted to leave. They wanted to stay and fight for the school that had inspired so much hope. That’s why they were at the meeting, to ensure the district followed through with the dramatic transformation it had promised. But they couldn’t wait forever, and they didn’t want to sacrifice their children’s education to the crusade. 

Barrera himself has spoken at length about the need to follow through on the transformation the district had promised. When Logan Memorial opened, he told me, “If we don’t deliver on the programmatic side then … word will get out in the community as well … and, I think we’ll go back to a situation where people say, ‘well, it’s a beautiful set of buildings, but we don’t think our kids are getting what they need there.” 

At the meeting, Barrera spoke with an assuredness that seemed to relieve the attendees, stopping after every other sentence so Sandoval could translate. 

“First of all, just thank you everybody for being here, and not just at this meeting this morning, but for making a commitment to this school,” Barrera said. “I’m hearing a few things, but I think the main thing that I’m hearing is everybody here came to this school with a lot of hope that something really great was going to be created for our students.” Barrera ran through a list of what the community had been promised: the Montessori curriculum, the project-based learning, the career readiness focus. All the things that, from where the parents were sitting, seemed at risk. 

“All of that was the vision in creating the school, has been the vision, is your expectation and you deserve that vision,” Barrera said. 

They didn’t have to choose between the excellent programming they were promised but haven’t materialized and the state-of-the-art facilities that had, Barrera reassured them. The community deserved everything it was promised.  

Anyone who told them that something couldn’t be accomplished because of a lack of resources weren’t the people making decisions. It was he and the other four elected board members that made decisions about where resources go, he said. 

“And nobody has ever come to me and said, ‘do you vote to cut bilingual education? … Do you vote to cut project-based learning?'” Barrera said. “We’ve never made that decision.” 

“When we approved this school, we also approved the resources that were going to be necessary to make this vision happen,” he said. He’d even spoken to Deputy Superintendent Fabiola Bagula about how best to implement a plan to get Logan Memorial to where it should be, Barrera said. 

“They’re cutting the staff that’s forming the plan,” one woman interjected. 

Barrera said he understood there were some positions being eliminated but insisted: “LMEC will have the resources and staff it needs to realize the vision by the beginning of (next) school year.” 

There was a collective sigh of relief followed by scattered applause. 

Barrera’s words felt authoritative. The community, many of whom felt they’d been jerked around and gaslit, seemed to feel that finally someone was paying attention. Finally, they were speaking to the right person. 

But Barrera’s assertions themselves were another set of promises, and the district’s batting average on promises wasn’t looking so swell. And while he insisted the district’s massive budget deficit, which has led to hundreds of layoffs, including of staff at Logan Memorial, wouldn’t impact the resources the school would receive, that seemed hard to believe.  

After all, San Diego Unified has been able to pass bond measure after bond measure that pumped in billions of dollars for construction, but those funds are restricted to infrastructure. They can’t be spent on expenses like staff, which is what the school really needed now. 

Then, Barrera left. He’d warned the group he’d have to leave before the meeting ended and had even stayed later than he’d planned. His departure didn’t change much. People continued to tell their stories.  

The original plan was to split into small groups to try to devise solutions to the predicament the school had found itself in, but the community couldn’t stop talking. Story after story came tumbling out of them, frustrations piled on frustrations. So, they stayed in the circle, listening, speaking. Their numbers continued to dwindle as people departed for work or other responsibilities. 

But what was next?  Nobody seemed sure. What was clear was that, despite being relieved by Barrera’s reassurances, they weren’t going to take them as the gospel truth.  

Then, someone brought up the idea of a protest. The kids could walk out too, someone else said. That could impact school funding and really get the district to pay attention. The people still here could spread the word to other parents in the community, another person said. Chavarin looked around the room and asked who all supported a protest.  

Every hand shot up. They still had work to do.