Logan’s Institute of Community Leaders Enrolling Students for College Success Program

A new program designed to prepare students for college is currently enrolling students for its freshman class.

The Institute of Community Leaders, James Logan High School’s “,” will welcome 180 incoming ninth grade students into its freshman class this fall.

The new program follows a track-style concept with pre-selected classes that students will follow through their four years at the high school. The curriculum is specifically designed to meet California State University and University of California enrollment requirements, according to ICL founders.

“You’re going to have a competitive chance to get into college,” said Jessica Lange, the principal of ICL and current House 3 principal at Logan, Tuesday night during a community forum at .

The forum was held in collaboration with Communities Organizing for Renewal, a faith-based group of community advocates.

“It’s a great opportunity for us,” said Susana Pineda, a COR community leader, to the crowd of 30 residents gathered at the church. “To see things like ICL become a reality is very important to us.”

For the last two years, the ICL design team has been meeting weekly to develop curriculum, prepare lesson plans and conduct research. The organizers studied similar programs at Oceana High School in Pacifica, Irvington High School in Fremont and several others.

“It’s hard to find a school just like ours,” Lange said.

During the informational meeting, Lange and Papas signed up eight new students.

To date, about 140 students have enrolled, according to Stephanie Papas, a Logan teacher who is among the seven ICL faculty members.

Enrollment began early March. As word has spread, more and more people have started to sign up, with 50 new registrants in the last week alone, Papas said.

“They choose us,” Papas said. “We give information to the community and they decide if this program will benefit their child.”

ICL’s program is structured with pre-selected courses, including electives, so that students meet not just college requirements, but college recommendations, Lange said.

Many colleges require two years of foreign language classes but recommend three. At ICL, students are pre-enrolled in three years of Spanish. The only downside is that students will not be allowed to enroll in extracurricular activities that intrude on classroom instructional time, except for sports. That means that ICL students can’t enroll in band or color guard, Papas said.

By the grade 11, students will be enrolled in advanced placement courses, the educators said. Much of that is due to the close-knit, family environment the faculty aims to create.

Though Logan teachers meet with other teachers in their subject area to discuss curriculum, they rarely get together to talk about individual students, Lange said.

“No one’s really got a sense of the student,” Lange said. “The teachers may never speak to each other.”

At ICL, the six instructors will meet weekly to support one another and discuss strategies. All teachers will apply the same strategies so that every student has the same quality of education.

A large high school like Logan, which has an enrollment of more than 4,000 students, can be difficult to navigate for some, the educators said. In ICL, students would be placed in classes of 30 students in a “block schedule.”

Some class sizes at Logan are close to 40 students per class, Lange said. Each class has only 54 minutes of instruction, which doesn’t allow for enough one-on-one time for students and teachers, Lange said.

Students in ICL, however, would be on a block schedule where they will only have three classes a day instead of six, allowing them to have longer class periods and less homework each night. The classes would alternate throughout the week with students attending all classes on Wednesdays, Lange said.

The schedule will allow for the same amount of instruction time per week as students in regular Logan classes. School will still start and end at the same time, and students will join others for fifth period lunch, Lange said.

“It’s just organized a little differently,” Lange said.

All students are encouraged to enroll in ICL, Lange said.

“We want our school to reflect our community,” Papas said. “So far, the demographics are very close to mirroring Logan’s.”

If more than 180 students enroll, they will be placed on a waiting list, though faculty doesn’t anticipate much attrition.

“Since this is the first year, we don’t know what the future will hold,” Papas said. “We’re making a huge investment in students, so we’re going to keep them there.”

The "School Within a School" faculty meets every Wednesday after school from 3:45 to 5:15 p.m. in Room 503 on the James Logan campus.

The next community forum will be held on Thursday, April 28 at Alvarado Middle School at 6:30 p.m. in the Media Center.