“Let’s Work it Out on the Remix”: How a Rivalry Between Two Schools Uncovered a Greater Flaw in the Public Education System

By Delany Moreno

Prior to the opening of the high school I attended, there was only one high school in my city serving about 2,500 students. I decided to attend this new high school as a part of the first graduating class simply because they had given me the opportunity none of my relatives and siblings who have lived here ever gotten: the opportunity to choose which high school I wanted to attend.

During my first year attending this school I was amazed by all of the new things provided, like smart boards for every class, free gym clothes, field trips to universities for every student, Chromebooks for every student in the class—as opposed to a single cart that needed to be rented out weeks in advance. By the end of the school year, I was proud to be a student here and I believed the town would also be eager to support a successful new educational opportunity for students living in the district. However, the opinion of local residents suggested otherwise. 

The most vocal disapproval came from current and former students of the only other high school in the district. Much of this rivalry stemmed from the fact that the district chose to build and fund an entirely new high school instead of prioritizing the urgent needs of the school that over 2,500 students attended. I had personally been enrolled and attended classes at this school the summer before freshman year and I definitely noticed the stark differences. Classes were crowded and some students did not initially have seats, it was difficult to get a hold of my counselor, and many of the buildings’ structures were old and needed to be renovated. I definitely felt that the students who felt animosity towards students at this new school were completely justified in their assertions. However, I did not understand why these two schools kept feeding into the rivalry instead of focusing on the real enemy. Our district was severely underfunded, and that reality is true for many students across the country.

Upon my arrival at Cal, I got to talk to other people not from my hometown, and I noticed many of their high school rivalries also stemmed from inequality in the funding allocated to these schools. A lesson I learned from this experience was that schools are criminally underfunded and instead of pitting two marginalized groups against each other, it's important to fight for better funding at the state and legislative level.