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In addition to being Alondra's main source of motivation, Alondra's mother is also a homeless drug addict living on the streets of San Francisco.
At age 11, when Alondra's mother could no longer care for her, Alondra went to live with her second cousin in Bayview/ Hunters Point. Alondra's two younger sisters moved in around the corner with their great-aunt, and her two older brothers moved to Sunnydale, though one is constantly in and out of jail.
Splitting up the family was an act of desperation six years ago. Alondra and her family were evicted when she was 9, and the family lived for two years in a car and a homeless shelter. When the situation didn't improve, the kids moved in with relatives.
Alondra says she doesn't remember when her mother started taking drugs, and she still doesn't know why. But she says her mother has always been the most kind, generous, and motivated person she knows.
"She always tries," Alondra says. "Other people don't try. Like my dad. He didn't try, but she always did. She would come around, and it could be her last dollar or her very last piece of bread, and she would give it to us. Sometimes she's too giving and people take advantage of her.
"I try and dedicate everything good I do to my momma," Alondra continues. "I want people to see that she did something right by me."
Even with a more stable living arrangement in recent years, unpredictable circumstances have interrupted Alondra's dogged pursuit of an education. During her sophomore year, her cousin lost her job, and Alondra had to stay home from school for a month to take care of her younger cousins.
"I had to be the one to take the kids to school and pick them up and make dinner," Alondra recalls. "I had a friend take the homework for me, but there was only so much I could do. It was nobody's fault."
Having missed a month of school, Alondra ended up with a D in biology, which she made up through night classes.
She says the extra hours of classes have been "strenuous," but she pursues a high school diploma with blind determination. Her mother, father, and two older brothers all dropped out of high school, so should she graduate in June, she will be the first in the family with a high school diploma. "That means something to me," Alondra says. "My sisters need an example. I'm going to graduate. I am going to be that icon."
Alondra doesn't usually talk about her difficult home life at school, where she is known for her positivity and optimism. She says it's easy to be upbeat at school, where classes fill her head with Greek mythology or media arts, not "that mess outside."
"I don't have any home problems when I'm at school," Alondra says. "School is my sanctuary."
Most of Balboa's staff found out that their school had been included in a lawsuit by reading about it in the newspaper right before the school year began. Once the staff returned to Balboa in the fall, misinformation spread through the halls like a bad rumor. Many teachers mistakenly thought Balboa was getting sued; everyone was on the defensive.
Principal Gray says at first she felt "intimidated" by the suit because of the amount of energy it would take up, but now she thinks it's "OK."
"We've got nothing to hide," she says. "There are some things that we have done right, and some things we have not done well enough."
She is troubled with what she perceives to be inaccuracies in some of the ACLU's allegations regarding Balboa and has offered a written rebuttal to the school district.
She says that contrary to the ACLU's argument, Balboa has enough money for textbooks, though there are a variety of reasons for shortages, ranging from teachers not ordering books on time, teachers choosing to use unavailable books, texts simply not arriving once they've been ordered, and students losing books. In fact, a popular joke among teachers is that Balboa "hemorrhages" textbooks.
Gray says she has worked hard to staff Balboa with qualified teachers, but sometimes unexpected circumstances -- like teachers evading arrest warrants -- come up. Gray uses emergency credentialed teachers -- student teachers with little or no classroom experience -- when she has to, and not all of them are unqualified. She says some have worked out so well she has gladly hired them once they earned permanent credentials.
Gray acknowledges that certain departments such as physical education, art, and music are underfunded, but there is only so much she can do. Gray adds that the school can afford to provide a bit more to these departments -- though not enough, teachers argue -- but some of the inexperienced teachers sometimes forget to fill out paperwork for supplies. Though she has tried to be vocal about some of her deteriorating facilities, Gray is equally hamstrung when it comes to the decrepit gym, bleachers, and football field because they are not funding priorities for the district.
The teachers, too, are conflicted about the lawsuit. Some hope the case will bring more attention to educational inequity, while others find the lawsuit misguided.
"There are definitely problems with the facilities, which you can tell just by looking at them," says social studies teacher Matt Alexander. "We can't get our shades fixed, there are only six phone lines, and we need more computers. All these things are really annoying, but they're not our biggest problem. Educational quality is our problem. This is a big, anonymous school, and then you bring in kids with a lot of challenges and it's a recipe for failure, no matter how talented the staff is."
