Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow
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San Mateo County Schools try to Bridge Achievement Gap
---Reginald Brown harbored a bad attitude toward school and teachers — even distrust.
By Neil Gonzales---San Mateo County Times--
"I wasn't paying attention in class and doing my homework," he said. "I thought, 'What is this going to do for me?' I felt (teachers) were out to fail me."
His home situation didn't help. His parents divorced and were mostly absent from his life, leaving his grandparents to raise him.
The result? "I was struggling for a while in school," Reginald said.
But things started to turn around once he arrived at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo. Reginald credited the change to the school's small-learning community program.
The small-learning model puts small groups of students together with the same teachers and subjects for up to two years, and fosters personalized instruction.