page_title: Balboa High School (California)
section_title: Academic resurgence
hierarchical_section_title: Balboa High School (California) / History / Academic resurgence
caption_attribution_description: English: Balboa High School, San Francisco, California Español: Escuela Secundaria Balboa 中文: Balboa高中
context_page_description: Balboa High School, colloquially known as Bal, is an American public high school located near the Excelsior District in the Mission Terrace neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Balboa serves grades nine through 12 as part of the San Francisco Unified School District.
  Balboa is a comprehensive school located in an urban working class district. It educates a greater proportion of the city's disadvantaged and minority students relative to other city high schools. Mirroring conditions in the areas it serves, the school has a history marked by periods of violence, controversy, and low academic performance.
  The school motto is "First on the Pacific". The campus is the only historic landmark school in the district and the only one operating in the city. Following the dismissal of the entire faculty in 1999, it became the first school in northern California to embrace and convert its curriculum to the concept of small learning communities. It was the first in California to start a school-based student health clinic. In response to the AIDS pandemic, it was the first school in California to distribute free condoms to students.
context_section_description: In 1996, frustrated by high turnover and low performance on the part of the educational staff, the SFUSD dismissed the entire faculty.
  During the 1999–2000 academic year, Balboa shifted its academic program to the concept of Small Learning Communities (SLC). These communities would form a 
  'school within a school" in an effort to turn around past poor academic performance. To support the formation of SLCs, Balboa was the recipient of funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2004 and 2005 through the Every Child Can Learn Foundation Secondary Redesign Initiative.
  Frustrated by poor conditions such as insufficient textbooks and dilapidated facilities during the late 1990s, students at Balboa became members of the class-action lawsuit Williams v. California. Filed in 2000 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the State of California, the suit alleged a failure to provide adequate facilities, textbooks, and teachers for the poorest schools in the state. The case was named after Eliezer Williams, a middle school student at the time, who would go on to graduate from Balboa. The lawsuit was resolved in 2004, with the administration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger agreeing to provide US$138 million for instructional material, US$50 million for critical facility repairs at nearly 2,400 state schools, and to reimburse school districts for future repairs of deficient facilities. Estimates indicate California may be liable for up to US$1 billion in reimbursements over several years.
  Building on an effort started in 2001 to increase scores by providing breakfast before tests, Balboa initiated a pilot breakfast program in 2005 called "Grab N Go." A first for Northern California, the program has increased the number of disadvantaged students receiving breakfast. Using magnetic swipe cards, eligible students can pick up a pre-bagged meal as they enter the building and can eat the meal during the first ten minutes of their first class. Previously, students would have to arrive up to 30 minutes before classes started and finish the meal in the cafeteria. Prior to 2001 participation in the free or reduced fee meal program averaged under 40% of eligible enrollment. Since the pilot program started, breakfast participation has averaged over 55%. Credited with increasing academic performance, the program was nominated by Nancy Pelosi for and subsequently received a Victory Against Hunger Award from the Congressional Hunger Center in 2006. Balboa was one of four schools nationwide to receive part of a grant from the got breakfast? campaign in March 2007 to support the program. Balboa has continued to serve subsidized lunch meals in a traditional two-tiered system. The social stratification caused by the separate lunch lines has attracted some criticism and efforts by the district to improve participation by eligible students.
  For the spring 2006 administration, 47% of the school's ninth-graders scored "proficient" or above on the statewide standardized English exam, up from 39% from the previous year.
  Balboa has reached third-highest rating of high schools in the San Francisco Unified District, next to Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts a Public School as second, and Lowell High School as first, in accordance to Great Schools Rating of administrators, parents, and fellow students.
caption: Balboa High School, main classroom building
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