| Lincoln High School | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1955 (as high school) |
| Type | Senior High School |
| Students | 2,100 - 2,700 (variable) |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| Location | 4777 Imperial Avenue, San Diego, California 92113, USA |
| District | San Diego City Schools |
| Campus | Urban |
| Colors | Green and White |
| Mascot | Hornets |
| Built | 1949 |
| Razed | 2003 |
| Reopened | September 2007 |
| Website | Lincoln High School web site |
Abraham Lincoln High School (also known as Lincoln High Educational Complex, Lincoln High School, or simply Lincoln), is an urban public high school in San Diego, California. It is part of the San Diego Unified School District. It serves approximately 2100-2700 students in grades 9-12 in the American K-12 education system. It is located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Southeast San Diego, part of the Encanto neighborhoods. It was named after President Abraham Lincoln.
Opened in 1949 and originally serving middle school students, Lincoln was converted into a high school in 1955. The original buildings were demolished and rebuilt during 2003-2007. The school has produced several nationally recognized popular sports figures.
Lincoln High School is currently divided into four small academies.[1] The centers' themes were the result of a 2005 parent survey.[2]
In particular, the Center for Social Justice [3] is educating San Diego's increasing activist culture. On Tuesday, February 10, 2009 a coalition of Lincoln High School along with Mission Bay High School, and several other schools including UC San Diego and San Diego State University sent hundreds of students, parents and teachers into the streets in support of banning weapons training in San Diego schools.[4] The movement is reminiscent of the 1969/1970 Lincoln Walkouts which lasted for 10 days and resulted in the district's first Black principal.[5]
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Expansion of the school was done on existing facilities until 2003. On September 24, 2003, Lincoln's cafeteria was the first building to be demolished.[6] The entire campus (with the exception of the gym) and a few homes nearby would eventually be razed to make way for construction of the new campus. This was a result of an elected ballot proposition approved by its citizens. During construction many students were displaced and relocated to other high schools in the District. The campus expanded with additional acquisition of property through eminent domain.[7]
Before demolition, the campus had been infamous for its gang activity, particularly when graduating senior Willie James Jones Jr. was gunned down in 1994, just days before he was to matriculate to the prestigious Cornell University, hitting headlines and sparking outrage all over the San Diego media.[8] The school also had been criticized for being behind academically, and there remained some skepticism in the community about Lincoln's reopening over those criticisms. Soon after Jones's death, Pastor Roy Dixon was told by the principal that "kids entered Lincoln with extremely low reading levels and could not perform academically."[9]
Lincoln High School was reopened on September 4, 2007. The new 24-acre (97,000 m2) campus was designed by architect and Lincoln alum, Joseph Martinez (class of 1966), and rebuilt by many Lincoln alumni who took part in construction of the school.[2] At a cost of $129 million, Lincoln is currently the most expensive campus in the San Diego Unified School District.[2]
In its newly rebuilt form, Lincoln now features major improvements such as an increased student enrollment capacity of 2,700 (from an average of 800 students during Lincoln's last few years before demolition), a 790-seat performing arts center, a football and track stadium that can seat 3,700, and other extra facilities for press and concessions. The improvements addressed concerns over Lincoln's previously dilapidated and outdated facilities, proper allocation of rooms per grade enrollment, and the increasing high school enrollment pressures of the neighborhood, in addition to public input and suggestions given by members of the Lincoln community. The site also features modern, state-of-the-art building design and facilities specialized to the curriculum.[2][10][11]
The Lincoln-Gompers Redevelopment Committee noted the paramount importance of holding Lincoln's students, often from groups historically under-served by the public education system, to high expectations within a rigorous, standards-based curriculum framework.[12] Upon Lincoln's re-opening, all students were required to fulfill the "A-G" subject area requirements for admission to the University of California, two years before San Diego Unified codified an "A-G for all" policy under then-superintendent, Terry Grier.[13] Due in part to the uneven diaspora of its middle school students to charters and bussing to schools north of the I-8, Lincoln was privately criticized within the district for being "too ambitious" in its academic aspirations in 2007, because data indicated many incoming first-year students to Lincoln were often under-prepared in comparison to their grade-level peers in key academic disciplines such as English and Math.[14] The rationale was that the "A-G" requirement (the mandatory number and scope of college-prep classes), thrust upon students unused to such daunting expectations, would lead to grade inflation or lowered standards of instruction in college-prep classes in order to avoid massive amounts of "D's" and "F's". As such, early on Lincoln High earned a reputation among parents and students for the difficultly of its core content area classes, particularly among students used to straight-A's in middle school. The high expectations are most pronounced in Lincoln's Advanced Placement program, as well as in its AP-preparatory 9th and 10th grade Math, Science, and English courses; there are a correspondingly high number of "D's" and "F's", mostly among first-semester 9th grade and 10th grade transfer students unused to such demands. Incoming Lincoln students can expect homework 3-5 nights a week in each of these core classes and an attendance rate of 95% in order to be successful. Lincoln partly addresses parental and student concerns over student sustainability in the staff recruiting parameters, which emphasize a commitment to supporting students to meet high but attainable academic goals. Furthermore,
In addition, a systemic structure was to create a Response to Intervention (RTI) model of instructional support, with counselor positions dedicated to identifying and supporting at-risk students, primarily 9th- and 10th graders. In developing curriculum, the teaching staff put special attention to data-driven instruction and culturally responsive content, with a heavy emphasis on teacher professional development. Each content area teacher attends monthly PLC (Professional Learning Community) meetings, a Center-specific meeting, and there is a minimum day each month meant to examine diagnostic and formative assessment data in course-alike groups in order to guide, target, and enhance instructional practices. Lincoln's fledgling academic program grew from 5 AP (Advanced Placement) class offerings in 2007 to 18 different AP offerings in 2010, including AP Environmental Science, AP Language and AP Literature, AP Calculus and AP Music. Additionally, Lincoln offers a broad range of support and academic enrichment for students:
Lincoln High School is located in Lincoln Park, a historically working-class, African-American neighborhood in Southeast San Diego. Beginning in the late 1990s and accelerating in the early 2000s up until its closure in 2002, Lincoln High's demographics began to shift as Latino, Vietnamese, Samoan, Filipino, Laotian and other ethnic groups moved in, attracted by residential and business redevelopment, competitive home and rental pricing, close proximity to transportation hubs such as the Market Street Trolley Station, and quick access to the I-805 and CA-94. When Lincoln reopened in 2007, for the first time Latino students were the majority, reflecting the change in the demographics of the neighborhood but also coinciding, a year later, with the severe economic downturn of 2008, which contributed significantly to student mobility. The student population has since stabilized at approximately 2100 students. As of the 2009 school year, the student body was composed of approximately 35% African-American,55% Hispanic or Latino and 10% other groups.[21] Despite shifts in racial, residential, and income demographics since its reopening, over 85% of Lincoln High's students still qualify for free- and reduced-lunch programs.
Since 2007, Lincoln students have achieved double-digit gains on state test score every year, with the largest increase coming in the 2008-09 school year. Starting with a baseline score of 540 in 2007-8 school year (the first year of testing), Lincoln students were expected by the State of California to gain only 13 points on the California Standards Test (CST) in the 2008-09 school year; instead students gained 47 points, to push the API (Academic Performance Index) growth score to 587. Despite these gains, in 2010 Lincoln was unable to avoid falling into Program Improvement under the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) federal legislation guidelines because it failed to meet mandated proficiency targets with student subgroups two years in a row, notably English Language Learners (ELL's). According to NCLB, 100% percent of students will be proficient in English and Math by 2014.[22] As of the end of 2011, Lincoln's API has grown to a current score of 617, a growth of 77 points in 4 years.[23]
Lincoln High has also produced the second most NFL players in the entire nation. In December 2010, Lincoln High's football team returned to the Division III finals in Qualcomm stadium, losing to perennial power Cathedral Catholic 24-7, but a significant milestone for a program only four years old.[24]
In 2010, Lincoln High clinched the California State Championship in Division II boy's basketball (Division II).[25]