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Overview of Leadership High School

Leadership High School (LHS) is located in the heart of downtown San Francisco. It currently serves a diverse group of approximately 190 9th and 10th graders, drawn from every zip code in the city. The students represent each of the city's major ethnic groups and a range of different performance levels. The 1997/8 school year was LHS's first year of operation. Incorporated as a non-profit in the spring of 1997, the school is governed by a board of directors. Its Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws are available for viewing.


LHS's location at Golden Gate
University in downtown San Francisco.
The school plans to add grades 11 and 12 consecutively over the next few years to reach a total of approximately 300-400 students. The school offers classes in a variety of subject areas, including World Literature, World History, Math, Science, Spanish (native & non-native), and Leadership Skills.

LHS started by leasing five classrooms, computer labs and office space from Golden Gate University (GGU), a private university with a law and business school. In their second year, LHS opened a small campus of mobile classrooms on land adjacent to GGU's main facility. Below you will find a description of the school and its history. In future installments you will find detailed information about issues the school is facing in its first year of operation.

: Instructional Program and School Staff
: Student Life
: Development History and Charter
: Facilities and Location


Instructional Program and School Staff

With its focus on college preparatory instruction, the school has chosen a core curriculum of English, Math, Social Studies, Spanish, and Science. The school offers additional activities in Leadership skills as well as a CityLabs program for weekly field trips to destinations in and around the Bay Area. In its current configuration, the school provides 320 minutes per class per week of instruction, approximately 30 percent more than the other high schools in the district. It uses a block scheduling format of 90 and 70 minute classes.


Dan Yamamoto, LHS's math
teacher, with students.
9th graders take a Social Studies course with a focus on world history, and then the following year they switch to Science. The math course uses the Integrated Mathematics Program (IMP) which is a hands-on, problem solving approach to math instruction developed at San Francisco and Sonoma State Universities in California. It replaces the traditional Algebra - Geometry - Trigonometry - Precalculus structure with an integrated program consisting of four-to-eight-week units which are each organized around a central problem or theme.

The Spanish course is divided into classes for native and non-native speakers. The Leadership activities are based on a curriculum developed by the California Association of Student Councils (CASC), which focuses on skills such as public speaking and group-based decision making. In addition to the teachers and the principal, the school also has two part-time Americorp Volunteers, an Administrative Assistant, a Fundraising Director, a Dean of Students, and an Assistant Principal.


Student Life

From August 25-28, 1997, LHS's approximately 100 ninth graders began their first year of high school with a three-day student retreat at a beach-side marine research institute in the Marin County headlands, an area just north of San Francisco. As part of Leadership's first year of operation, the school and its newly hired staff sponsored the retreat as a way of bringing the students together before the year began. The students slept in the institute's spartan barracks and spent their day-time hours immersed in a coordinated set of leadership-building exercises. The similar retreat was held the second year. LHS hopes to be able to offer the retreat each year as part of its regular school-year initiation activities.


LHS student wearing school uniform.
Students have used the school's downtown location to take advantage of some of San Francisco's other resources. The city's main modern art museum is only two blocks away, as are any number of other cultural institutions. Each week, the school schedules Friday afternoons for excursions and field trips as part of the CityLabs program. A typical afternoon might include visiting and assisting several different local social service organizations such as a soup kitchen or a food distribution foundation.

A partial list of student-initiated clubs, which meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, includes: Drama, Yearbook, Dance, Russian, Latino, Asian, Computer, Japanese, Animation, and Swimming. The school currently has men's and women's basketball teams and plans to create more in the near future. Physical education facilities are provided at the nearby Embarcadero YMCA. Another distinctive feature of the school's approach is the use of student uniforms. Green sweaters with dark pants are mandatory for all students throughout the day.


Development History and Charter

Leadership High School is the brain-child of Mark Kushner, a former English teacher, tennis coach, and lawyer. In the early 90's, Mark was practicing law for a local San Francisco law firm when, in the midst of a desire to do more work in education, he heard about charter schools.


Mark Kushner, founder of LHS.
In preparation for applying for the charter, he spent a year at Harvard Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School of Government, where he designed much of the school's plan with the help of other graduate students and professors. In 1996, he submitted a first proposal to the local San Francisco school board.

When the charter was officially granted in the spring of 1997, LHS became the third charter school in the district. There is currently an elementary school and another high school. LHS, however, is the first start-from-scratch high school in San Francisco, and the first high school in the district to be located in the downtown area.


Facilities and Location

Once the charter was passed, the next challenge was to find a location for the school. Mark ultimately negotiated a unique arrangement with Golden Gate University to house the school on the fifth and sixth floors of the university's downtown complex. The university had unoccupied classroom space during the day and plans to start a school of education in the near future. For LHS, the university's college-level setting -- with an auditorium, a computer lab, and library -- matched the academic and college-preparatory focus of the school's instructional program.


Mark Kushner and students in hallway of LHS.
The downtown location itself has proved advantageous to the school. Part of the school's mission is to attract as diverse a group of students as possible. The downtown location was selected because it allows students from all parts of the city, and even outside the city, to take public transportation to school each morning. Many parents work downtown and they can commute with their children. At lunch time, students are restricted to a two-block area. For athletics, LHS has partnered with the city's YMCA system to provide recreational facilities for the afternoons.