A Long-Term Plan to Introduce Latin in Public High Schools and Recruit New JCL Chapters

One problem that I have noticed in my own community is the lack of Latin language options in the San Francisco United School District (SFUSD). Currently, there are seventeen high schools included in this district, but only one of the schools, Lowell High School, offers Latin. As these schools are all public schools, they should offer their students similar opportunities. Therefore, I want to try to make learning the Latin language more accessible for students in my area. Although I acknowledge that this problem will be a challenge because it would require government funding and support, I want to at least bring awareness to the issue in order to instigate change. 

I would start this project by reaching out to the World Language Department head at Lowell High School, Mr. John Raya, and ask him how his school started Latin as a course option. I would also reach out to Lowell’s Latin teacher and ask if students would be willing to be a part of a video, in which students explain why they chose Latin over the other options available to them and how it has helped them in other aspects of their lives. To create this video, these students could film their responses themselves, or I would also be more than willing to go to the school and film it for them. With the video created, I would compose a letter to the SFUSD board president, Mark Sanchez, advocating for Latin to be implemented into the language programs at other San Francisco public high schools. This letter would also consist of statistics collected from the Education Testing Service that show that students who learn Latin in school consistently do better on the verbal part of the SAT than students studying other languages. Finally, if budgeting is an obstacle, I would propose a fundraiser led by CAJCL to aid in the cost of starting the program. I would also like to go to one of SFUSD’s monthly board meetings and promote the possibility of expanding the Latin program across the district. Then, if more Latin programs were created across multiple high schools, more schools would be likely to join CAJCL.