Logan's 'School Within a School' Program Will Keep 180 Pioneering Freshman College Bound

With California school's ranking 48th among the nation, teachers are seeking out, and sometimes even creating, innovative methods of education. At the forefront of this movement is's newest program, "School Within a School". 

"This is exactly what the community has been asking for," said Mary Schlarb, a concerned community member from .  

Approximately 180 incoming freshman will be chosen out of class of 1000 students to participate in a track style program throughout their four years at Union City's sole high school.

Tentatively titled Tomorrow's Leaders Today, the program will open next fall with a faculty of six teachers, including Dorothy Allen, Erin Cross, Alicia Elbert, Jessica Lange, Stephanie Papas and Ed Raco. 

Each founding member is a current teacher at James Logan proper, as the high school campus is referred to by program staff. The team will work together to ensure not only the success of the students they are directly teaching, but will be concerned with the class as a whole.   

These six instructors will work closely with their class of 180 students from day one of freshman year all the way through graduation day. 

"All six teachers will know the names of all 180 students by the time they walk across the stage," said physical education and history instructor Papas. 

The curriculum will meet California State University and University of California enrollment requirements. This tracking style education not only readies students for a higher education, it reaches out to the students that aren't "plugged-in" to school activities such as band or forensics, ensuring that they do not "fall through the cracks," according to Papas. 

"When a problem is identified in the morning, it will be addressed that afternoon," said Raco, the program's math teacher. 

The students will move together as a family type unit, getting to know their peers and instructors as a self contained cluster. This system is already in place with the "freshman family" concept currently in employment among the school's 9th grade class. 

James Logan will not incur any additional costs for Tomorrow's Leaders Today, nor will it cost parents, according to Lange, its school administrator. 

"The only thing parents will have to buy is in to the pedagogy," said Cross, who will teach Life Skills, a class preparing adolescents for the transition to adulthood.

The program will begin accepting applications from among middle schools in February of 2011. Teaching plans will be solidified and the inaugural class of 2014 will be chosen by mid-spring.

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.