School Demographics
San Jose High School is located in an urban setting in northeast San Jose, CA. San Jose is at the heart of Silicon Valley and is home to a racially and ethnically diverse population. SJHS is one of six high schools in the San Jose Unified School District, which is home to 41 schools in total. It is the oldest school in the district and has the second smallest high school student population at 925 students enrolled. At SJHS, 84.9% of students are identified as Hispanic or Latino, 4.6% as Asian, 2.6% as Filipino, 4.5% as White, 1.3% as Black or African American, 1.7% as two or more races, and 0.3% as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Of these students, 72.4% are socioeconomically disadvantaged, 29.7% are English learners, and 1.4% are unhoused. Many of the other high schools in the district have vastly different student demographics in comparison.
SJHS is an International Baccalaureate world school, and thus, offers both the IB Middle Years Program, IB Diploma Program, and IB Career Program as rigorous pathways for college and career preparedness. Additionally, students have the opportunity to participate in Silicon Valley Career and Technical Education programs for high school credit. The IB program is a magnet for the school within the district, attracting some students from outside of the local neighborhood to attend. However, SJHS is primarily a neighborhood and legacy school with a large number of students who walk to school each morning and families who have attended the school for generations.
In the 2023-24 school year, SJHS will create a new IB course offering within the Social Science department, meaning ALL Juniors will either participate in the existing IB History of the Americas course or the new IB standard level history course. This move is intended to allow all students to experience a rigorous IB course in their time at the school and allows for adjustment in course curriculum within IB History of the America as there is now an increase in student enrollment in this course. Through the IB program, students are expected to think interdisciplinarily and critically as global citizens. The addition of this unit on environmental injustice and social response is inherently interdisciplinary and will be engaging for students as they can all make connections to how urban segregation has affected their own lives.
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