This is the way San Franciscans of a certain age recognize other San Franciscans; the password, the secret handshake. It tells everything: class, status, maybe religion, who your family is and who your friends are.
If the person says they went to Lowell, then you know quite a bit about him or her. Lowell is a premier school. The graduates are thought to be smart, went on to a good college, probably came from a family with money, maybe old money, and could be Jewish.
Other answers include a whole list of public schools from the Mission (old time Mission district kid, probably started out poor), Bal (for Balboa), someone from the Excelsior or Outer Mission, also of fairly modest means. Lincoln? From the Sunset district maybe, knows a lot of people from Lowell, too. Washington? Grew up on the other side of the park, in the Richmond. Lincoln and Washington folks are middle class, went to Cal or maybe S.F. State.
I am a San Francisco public school kid through and through. My pedigree: Treasure Island Elementary. Potrero Hill Middle School (RIP), Philip and Sala Burton Academic High School (hated it), and Balboa High School (made me). My girl Elayne forwarded me this article as another SFUSD kid, which reminded me that we are not the only ones who judge other "San Franciscans" by their answer to the following question: What school did you go to?
Depending on their answer, we could judge their street cred, whether their parents were loaded, and most importantly, if they were lying about their SF roots. It was less about xenophobia, and more about pride for making it out in one piece. SF public schools are no joke. My sister Ruth went to MLK middle school, then Lowell, then Gal, then dropped out. My sister Jaydee went to MLK also, then Gal, then numerous other schools before she also dropped out. So when I set my academic career off with Potrero Hill Middle School, one of SF's most notorious because of its proximity to Hunters Point and Double Rock Projects, it defined who I became and what I would survive. When it was reconstituted, as many troubled schools are in attempt to wash the stigma away, my history in its halls was wiped clean with it.
When it was time to choose a high school, I tried to change my stripes for my parents' sake, and was accepted to the "prestigious" Philip Burton. It was the worst experience of my life, with the most amount of "hate" for a 14-year old girl and the highest amount of pretentiousness. I just didn't get along with the private school kids (that came from Epiphany to Burton), who were obsessed with status, drama, and the latest pair of Jordans.
I finished off my final years of high school at Balboa - much to my initial disdain - after applying to School Of The Arts and Lincoln High to stay out of trouble. I was rejected. Balboa was notorious for breeding convicts and killers, teenage moms and gang leaders. Although the majority of the friends I made also dropped out later in the year, I thrived, thanks to progressive curriculum such as Law Academy and teachers like Ms. Safir, Mr. Medina, and Mr. de Guia.
I'd always thought I'd want my son to go to public school to earn his "street smarts", but the margin of failure is so wide, and we all would like to provide a better life for our children than we had. So while he definitely won't go to private school, he will go to a progressive public school, and we will make it back to SF one day. I promise.
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