Misfortune Never Gives You Notice

For the 2011-2012 school year, the identified two core objectives: Raise the number of students scoring "proficient" on state and federal tests and boost English learners—a group that now makes up more than 30 percent of its enrollment.

Thousands of Spanish speakers and hundreds who know only Tagalog, Cantonese and Vietnamese (as well as scores of others spread across half a dozen world languages) —part of the reason English learners as a subgroup have sometimes lagged behind.

But what about their parents? 

"How do you ever know who you are talking to, unless you can have a dialogue?" teacher Amparo Ramos asked to the San Lorenzo Unified School District Board Tuesday night during a brief presentation about the. 

She and others from the school  had come to thank the board for hiring new principal John Kelly. But after a year of ups and downs for the troubled campus, Ramos took a moment to speak about the population they serve. 

"Let's embrace our ESL students with the deepest compassion, knowing all so well how fortune is forever changing," Ramos said. 

When she's not at the Adult School, Ramos leads  a popular citizenship class at the San Lorenzo Library, shepherding hundreds of aspiring Americans through the naturalization process. 

That class used to be at the Adult School, but had to find another home due to budget cuts. Earlier this year, the school feared it, too, would fall under the ax. 

"Misfortune never gives you notice," Ramos said, quoting a Spanish proverb. "It keeps changing hands."