This past Saturday was our 4th annual district Speech and Debate intermediate school championship tournament. At the end of the day, I sat in a packed auditorium, the largest in the school district, as students and parents excitedly awaited the announcement of the champions who would be traveling to the national tournament in New Mexico later this year. The energy was palpable. Anyone can tell you that in SAUSD, Speech and Debate has become one of our prized programs, with championships and recognitions at both the state and national level.
Earlier that same Saturday, I found myself walking from venue to venue in downtown Santa Ana for our annual Boca de Oro festival of literary art and culture. We had hundreds of students performing, sharing their creativity and talents with our Santa Ana community. The outward celebration of our students’ collective brilliance masked the huge logistical lift of making the festival a reality. Our coordinator of Visual and Performing Arts, Robyn MacNair, could certainly tell you some stories about just how hard it has been to take the festival from concept to reality.
These types of celebrated programs share a similar origin story.
New initiatives must grow through a start-up phase, when success is not guaranteed and the stakes feel high. When we hired Sal Tinajero as a program specialist to launch Speech and Debate, for example, he was given a small budget and few systems for guidance. During those early days and weeks, every small hiccup felt like it might derail the vision. How are we going to hire coaches? What about schools that don’t want to participate? Where do advisors fit in the collective bargaining agreement?
One by one, the team collaborated and brainstormed and tried to move the work forward. There were moments when we had to circumvent established bureaucratic protocols that simply couldn’t address our needs – and certainly not in a timely manner. At times, we had to create entirely new systems and processes. It felt a bit dangerous. We reminded each other to just keep moving forward.
It takes vision and a lot of hard work to bridge the start-up gap. You have to push through both self-doubt and resistance. You have to press against the inertia of such a large bureaucracy. I have watched this process play itself out over and over again. It’s the difference between those projects and programs that thrive, and those that quietly die off and disappear. The redesigned film academy and studio at Santa Ana High School was nearly derailed a half-dozen times, but now stands as one of the premier learning spaces in the district. Our Círculos superschool project started off as little more than a community design team, and has led to one of the most ambitious instructional programs in the country.
Saturday afternoon felt incredibly rewarding. Seeing the exceptional work of team members who had a vision for what our kids can do, and then persevered to see it through, brings me tremendous satisfaction.