The task wasn't easy. They were faced, after all, with the prospect of somehow unifying a student body that would be almost incomprehensibly diverse. For Ms. Hovenic, the answer to these questions was homerooms, which she knew something about from her years as a high school principal. In most high schools, the homeroom is merely a place where announcements are made and attendance taken. Each family consists of two dozen students drawn randomly from every grade in the K-6 school.
Students remain in the same family and with the same teacher until they go on to middle school.
The families meet for an hour each week. They celebrate birthdays and holidays together, go on outings, and keep hefty family scrapbooks. But these gatherings are more than just feel-good sessions. The students also plan and take part in a number of social projects, such as collecting food and clothing for families across the border in Tijuana and helping out the needier children in the school. The staff at the new school also discussed ways to handle the inevitable conflicts that break out between children and disrupt learning.