Navigating Self Advocacy in Underfunded Educational Systems

By Anna Chan

San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the world, the home for the super-wealthy and major tech companies, and known for its innovation and progressiveness. To me, it’s where I grew up my whole life - home to my family, friends, and neighbors - who did not see the benefits of wealth in the city pass down to them. Because I grew up in a low-income area, my family had high hopes for me being able to move up in the world. It was well known that schools in my neighborhood had lower academic outcomes, so they sent me to better-funded schools across the city. Although the long commute was a pain, I was able to enjoy school and achieve high grades. 

In high school, I ended up experiencing a school that simply did not have the resources it needed for its high number of students. I felt lost in a big school and my academic performance started to decline. My family didn’t know how to help me and I was receiving no support from my school. I began to get low grades and missing classes. The little attention I received were punishments or scoldings, during which no one asked why this was happening. My family got automated truancy messages on the phone, but they were only in English so they couldn’t understand them anyways. I felt extremely discouraged and my mental health continued to decline. Sometimes teachers passed me in their classes just because the system was too overloaded for students to retake courses. I ended up graduating senior year alone with over 100 absences. 

After high school, I attended community college. Although underfunded, they did their best to provide resources for their students. I was disappointed about not attending a university, but I knew I was capable of academic achievement and wanted better for myself. I learned about the transfer process, best academic timelines for my major, extracurriculars, resource centers, and more. Because I did my own research and used the resources available, I was able to transfer to UC Berkeley, where I’ll be graduating in Spring 2025. 

I credit my accomplishments to my ability to advocate for myself, but I wish I had been able to have resources more available to me, with advisors and teachers that cared enough to ask me what was going on. It’s difficult for young students to learn in these uncaring, underfunded environments. We shouldn’t have to fight for these things—we deserve them.