Following a brief letter to students from its principal, Lowell High School became a closed campus as of Monday, April 10. Students are no longer allowed to come and go from campus during school hours, ending the popular off-campus lunch.
Lowell principal Mike Jones sent a notice out to staff, families and students on April 6, stating that Lowell would be implementing a “closed campus protocol,” which includes ID requirements that compel staff and students to wear a lanyard with their Lowell ID at all times.
In the letter, Jones stated that the campus would “reopen” at an unspecified date once there was “85% attendance, passing all classes, less than 5% tardies and no disciplinary referrals.” Moreover, the administration would need to see “100% compliance” daily of student and staff identification. Between 8:40 a.m. and 3:40 p.m., students are not permitted to leave campus without documented permission.
Calls made to Lowell and the San Francisco Unified School District were not returned.
A follow-up letter from Jones on the morning of Thursday, April 13, elaborated slightly on the reopening process, stating that the school “will grant students who have attended 85% of their classes open campus privileges by grade level.”
Mission Local interviewed 26 random students regarding the recent developments. All 26 were against the campus closure and said it would not keep them safer. A majority said they hadn’t been given a justification for the new rules and found the emails insufficient and confusing.
Several students referenced widely circulated videos of young people brawling at nearby Stonestown Galleria in March as the likely cause for “cracking down.” The brawls involved dozens of youths inside the mall, pushing, kicking and stomping each other. Mission Local is informed that Lowell students were involved in the melees, but they took place both off-campus and after school hours.
Jones’s first safety memo, sent out to staff, families and students in March, said: “Engaging in any form of violence or a threatening manner will not be tolerated, and there will be consequences for those who engage in such behavior.”
Rendering Lowell a closed campus can’t physically alter students’ behavior after school hours and off-campus. The move was seen by many as both a punishment and a deterrent against future undesirable behavior.
One Lowell teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said administration communicated to her that the closure was prompted by “non-Lowell students coming on campus and causing issues,” but added that “the fights at Stonestown were also a safety concern.” She said that students going off-campus is “a privilege that needs to be earned.”
Alan Alvarez, a junior at Lowell, said the new protocols make the school “feel like a prison.” When we spoke, he was eating a Rice Krispies Treat for lunch. “I would go to Stonestown,” said Alvarez, of his normal lunch routine. “There’s a lot of people like me who don’t eat the school lunch, and that was their way to get food.”
Several students said that the prohibition from buying food off-campus was particularly harsh, given how many of them supplement “elementary-sized” school lunch portions with other food. Students agreed the on-campus lunches were problematic – in taste and freshness. One offered a photo of a recent burger.
Many of their peers who rely on school lunches alone remain hungry, they said. Others said the focus on tardiness felt punitive and removed from the supposed focus on student safety.
“They say it’s all about safety,” one Lowell senior, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “But I don’t know how that’s connected to attendance. It feels like it should be a whole community thing, like, ‘We just want to make sure you guys are safe.’ I don’t understand how attendance and tardies factor into that.
“It feels like a punishment when I don’t know why it should be a punishment.”
Kaylee, a freshman, said she lives an hour’s bus ride away in Bayview and gets “a lot of tardies” because of the long commute. She also said a protocol punishing tardiness felt unfair, considering the Stonestown fights were after school hours.
As for on-campus lunch, Kaylee said she doesn’t eat at the cafeteria because it’s “not good.” Does she pack lunch? “No,” she said.
Bella, another freshman walking beside Kaylee, said that since the campus closure, cafeteria and vending machine lines are especially long, since everyone was “stuck inside” at lunch.
Bella didn’t think the rules made a difference in terms of student safety, emphasizing that “the fight happened outside of school. Violence is still happening outside of school, so this is not going to stop that.”
Students who take the lengthy and circuitous route from the city’s southeast to Lowell on the 23-Monterey and 29-Sunset buses worried that any focus on punctuality will fall more heavily on them.
Eve, a senior, said that she thinks the protocol was prompted by students cutting class, but is being sold as a safety measure: “It’s not supposed to be a punishment, but it sounds like it is.”
A Lowell parent, whose child is in the senior class, also questioned the protocol. In looking at the wording, she said, “It’s not Lowell students being protected from the outside world; this is like the outside world being protected from Lowell students.”
The parent said that for many seniors, there’s an understanding with certain teachers that they can leave early if need be. Last Tuesday, as the parent picked up her child from school, her child’s friend was barred from leaving campus and told to return to a class, even though her teacher had said she was free to go.
The letters detailing Lowell High School’s closed campus protocols are below.
https://www.scribd.com/document/639227311/Mike-Jones-April-6-Lowell-Closed-Campus
Additional reporting by Joe Eskenazi.
And seeing all the dog-whistling racists rear their predictable heads in this comment section? Ridiculously predictable.
I don’t understand how these students, many of whom are low-income, can justify spending $15 dollars a day on lunch. Talk about stupid life choices. Eat your free food at school if you want to get out of poverty. You can’t afford going to the mall every day. The school district should teach financial literacy.
Lunch at school is NOT cree and hasn’t been free since I was a student there in 1999-2003
“A majority said they hadn’t been given a justification for the new rules”.
Schools are not democracies, and the school managers do not need to justify anything to the kids when making rules.
Maybe this is because some troublemakers got in when the admission policy was changed.
If so, now the achievers pay the price.
The article says Mission Local has information that Lowell students were involved in the Stonestown beatings.
Nothing is presented to corroborate this statement.
I haven’t seen any public description of the schools attended, cities of residence, etc., of the participants. What sort of info does Mission Local have?
While it’s certainly believable that Lowell kids were involved, isn’t there a journalistic need to provide even the most rudimentary description of the evidence behind this claim?
Is there a secure bike rack at school? If so, lateness problem solved.
It’s about 6 miles from deep in the Bayview to Lowell. Google maps says it takes 45 minutes by bike, that’s ten minutes less than the bus, but someone in decent shape can shave at least another ten minutes off that time. And bike trip time is dependable, unlike Muni.
And nobody start with “bikes are too expensive” Everything costs money, but reliable transportation opens up all kinds of possibilities that make it worth it. A decent used bike is about $250 and a new one in the $500 to $750 range, spread that cost out over the several years of a bike’s lifespan and it’s literally less than a penny a day.
With a commitment to a bike maintenance class at school, kids will learn the kind of practical skills that will last a lifetime.
Biking via Bayshore to Alemany to Ocean Ave is dangerous, what with fast cars & lack of protected bike lanes.
Sir or madam —
As a daily bike rider I can tell you that going from Bayview to Lake Merced — and back — is a haul and not a serious suggestion at all. It’s also a curious response to the subject matter of this story.
JE
Joe-
Several students are quoted as complaining about being tardy because Muni is unreliable. This is a solution. Why would it be considered a curious response?
The commute is doable. I did a commute from the zoo to downtown for years, and many other bike commuters do equivalent distances. Healthy young people should be capable of the same. Don’t sell them short. Your low expectations of their capabilities might become self fulfilling.
In reply to Tina: Hi Tina, it is nice to hear you opinion, but I think you should back your argument with some evidence :). First off, no we students have signed no such agreement. Second off, many students have an off block. During this time, students may have up to 2 and a half hours in which time they would normally go out to eat. I do believe this is more than enough time to get food from elsewhere. As you said, it is the students choice to skip class, and that should have repercussions. But why should every student be punished for something that only some students are doing? Leaving the campus does no equal to skipping class. Also, if this policy was about safety of the students, this would be different. There are many entrances not guarded that people can still sneak in and out of, so it does not protect students, it really just punishes them. I appreciate your hope for us students figuring it out, but I really think it’s the staff who need to “figure it out”.
For Ramon: Many high schools are open campus, not just Lowell. The school should not have all jurisdiction over the kids, students deserve some say as well; but instead the students were blindsided by this policy without any good explanation
Nancy: Yet again, this policy does not really prevent anyone from entering as there are unguarded entrances, it more so prevents people from exiting. This is not for the safety of the students.
Why should students be punished for a problem they were never a part of?
Apparently this is nothing new, it is just the principal finally got wind of this. Since this happened off campus and after school who knows how many people were from Lowell or other schools.
I honestly don’t feel sympathy because most SF high schools do not have open campus. It is a privilege not a right.
Amazing. My son, when I was in Brooklyn, was allowed out for lunch in 4th grade!
I guess Lowell admins think they’re running a low grade prison rather than a high school.
This is why people can’t have nice things. For years, the student body at Lowell was generally a self-managing group. After lottery admissions, this changed. The students now need hand-holding for basic things. Very sad change. A group of immature and underdeveloped teenagers can really ruin it for everyone.
Let me guess – this happening as they “transition” to being another open enrollment program is entirely a coincidence.
Why do students who attend Lowell believe that they should have privileges that students who attend other high schools do not have? Everyone knows that change is not easy and will be met with resistance by the students. Still, it is the responsibility of the principal and school staff, not the students, to make the rules and change them if and when it is deemed necessary. (And, if you don’t like lunches that the school serves (I didn’t either!), take your own lunch with you.)
Mi hija entrará pronto a Lowell, en mi opinión como madre es que esto está perfecto porque hay más disciplina y seguridad.
Is there a connection between Lowell having lottery admissions for two years and this change of policy? Seems like an obvious question to ask. The academics certainly went downhill: https://reason.com/2022/10/12/a-top-ranked-high-school-got-rid-of-merit-based-admissions-then-students-grades-tanked/
This is a PUBLIC school not private, and should be treated as every other high school not some expensive exclusive prep school.
Actually Kim when Lowell was 100% merit it was 36% free and reduced lunch, the only top 25 high school in the Bay Area over 5%. Kids In projects sat next to kids from St Francis Woods and Pacific Heights. Compare any other top school, Cupertino, Palo Alto, Fremont Mission, Saratoga, Piedmont, Urban, University, etc. You didn’t need money you just had to choose to sacrifice and study long hours and many kids did. The goal should not be to let kids in randomly but to get more kids of diverse backgrounds to study hard, use public libraries and make educational sacrifice for knowledge the most important thing. Getting into Lowell is only meaningful if you sacrifice to achieve it and change destructive and ineffective cultures and home lives. Make it merit. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. It’s not about money. It’s about morals.
The school is doing a really good job in keeping the students safe and disciplined. Parents and kids who feel this is too much, kindly transfer your kids and let other parents who enjoy this kind of disciplinary actions bring their kids. Let’s stop this STUPIDITY in an era of mass shooting. Why is it so hard to follow rules? Damn it?
bell schedule has start time of 8:40am, out at 3:40pm, with a 40-minute lunch period (there are 2 periods; the earlier starting at 11:20am, the later ending at 12:55pm)
students know this, and can and should plan accordingly. school lunch at public schools here have always sucked; bring stuff if you don’t want the school meals. having only 40 minutes for lunch, seems really hard to make it all the way to the mall, and get back for class in time. they seem to feel entitled to do their own thing, on their own time, without repercussions. cutting classes and being late back from lunch is a decision they make, and within their control–maybe this is a good time in life to learn the lesson of planning, and being responsible for your actions.
When I went to school here in the 80’s, we had open campus, until we didn’t, after students started stealing from the 7-11 and restaurants’ tip jars (Mission High, and the Castro neighborhood where most students went at lunch). we adapted. I’m pretty sure students have to sign an agreement at the beginning of each school year, saying they will abide by the rules, which I presume includes being punctual and following the bell schedules. hope these kids figure it out!
By reading some of the comments I realize that there are a lot aholes both male and female who believe that punishment is always a good thing. Perhaps their life has been filled with abusive behaviors and they now want to visit that misery on everyone but specially their children. As an alumni I can say that eating lunch outside of campus was and still is a great option because the cafeteria lunch was never good it wasn’t in the 80s, the 90s and it isn’t any better now. So, the point the article is trying to make is that the principal has failed to explain, articulate and identify the direct cause and intended result of this prison like change, yes prison like change. Some people like prison life that’s fine. But most of us do not. That said from reading the article and having experienced first hand the lousy and pathetic lunches available at the cafeteria the option of eating out gave me an opportunity to eat a hot and fresh lunch as opposed to the outright garbage being literally dished out at the cafeteria. The gym used to sell pizzas not sure if they still do but this was not a reliable option even then for two reasons, one, the lines were huge and second the pizzas were only available when the athletic department wanted to raise some extra cash. So to sum it up to all the abusive disciplinary types who would have been Nazi camp soldiers if given the choice, not every restrictive or punishing action is warranted, necessary or positive. Clearly the principal didn’t think this through or maybe he is a member of the A club as well and decided, ” I will impose my tyrannical will”. Period.
Off campus privilege is just that – a privilege. It should be earned and 85% attendance is not an especially big ask. I understand the students not agreeing with this, but I support Lowell on this one. If students want to be able to go off campus during school hours, then they should demonstrate the are responsible enough to do so. Wearing lanyards at all times during school though does seem a little overkill though. I mean who wants to be wearing what is essentially a hall pass 100% of time at school?
And seeing all the dog-whistling racists rear their predictable heads in this comment section? Ridiculously predictable.