Thinking Like a Founder

A Journey to the New High School Campus With Gulliver LaValle, Hillbrook Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Interim Head of Middle School

In May 2022, the Hillbrook staff – led by Gulliver LaValle, Hillbrook’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and our incoming Interim Head of Middle School – brought our rising 8th grade class to downtown San Jose to visit the future home of Hillbrook Upper School and the surrounding neighborhoods. Working together with the architects, the students participated in a Post-It Project, creating a dynamic map of their ideal high school setup – the first of many chances to dream together about what Hillbrook’s new high school will look like, with student choice and engagement lighting the way. 

Gulliver’s experiences from the day – and what they’ll mean for both the current middle school students and our future class of founding freshmen – are below.

First Reactions

Our high school campuses are located in two historic buildings in downtown San Jose – the Moir Building, which was built in 1894 and still retains a lot of its original beautiful architecture, and the San Jose Armory, which was built in the 1930s and was once home to the National Guard. It was exciting to take a group of 7th graders to the new campus building – it was an eye-opening experience for our students to actually have a tangible experience with the high school, and get a sense of the amazing creative opportunities that they’d have access to. They also got to hear about the historical relevance of these buildings in the downtown sphere of influence and culture, and how we’re both honoring that past and creating a new space for the future. We talked a lot about how this is a move towards urban renewal in this particular part of San Jose. 

The Moir building is a large brick building with a lot of beautiful features on the outside, but when you walk in and it opens up with a huge skylight – seeing that was definitely a whoa! moment among the students. The Armory is also huge and full of light, and they were excited about the potential for sports and athletic programs – I remember one student commenting on the echo effect, and pointing out something I hadn’t even thought of: we could have a huge home court advantage! 

After our design activity, we took them down the street to lunch at San Pedro Square Market, which was another great way for them to imagine the freedom and independence of San Jose as part of the campus experience. They got a better sense of what it would be like to have the city as your classroom. That idea might have come up short for them before, but I think the way they experienced that day showed them what it could be like.

Building Our Ideal School

When they were working with the architects on the Post-It project, the students got really excited about deciding where their favorite features would go, like the cafeteria or independent study areas. One of the reasons we brought them down there was to give them a chance to think about these things, and to be a part of the planning: where are the sports fields going to be? Where would the science lab be? What would an ideal classroom look like? Where is the student center, or the hangout spot? 

They came up with so many clever ideas, and it was a lot of fun to see them getting into it and using their creativity and their sense of humor. I remember seeing suggestions like outdoor classes in the park, a greenhouse, a jewelry-making space, multicultural food service – one student asked if we could have a taco truck! It was great to have them be a part of imagining what the space could be while working with the architect.

The Downtown Experience 

Downtown San Jose is full of places and opportunities that are just waiting to connect with a place like Hillbrook’s new high school. From the beginning, we’ve been talking about the concept of “City as Classroom” – and we know that our downtown partnerships will play a significant role there. There are plenty of larger companies in downtown San Jose who could be part of the conversation, like Zoom and Cohesive and Google; but we’re also working with nonprofits who serve underrepresented local students, like Breakthrough Silicon Valley, and traditional nonprofits like the Tech Interactive. 

There’s also real potential for different sports organizations to provide a robust athletic and activity experience for our kids – not just pro teams like the Sharks and the Earthquakes, but San Jose State, San Jose City College, or the San Jose Boys and Girls Club. There are amazing theater spaces downtown, like the Center for Performing Arts and the Civic Theater, and small businesses with local social impact, like City Year. The possibilities are almost overwhelming. But that’s the exciting part – our kids will get to dive in in a way that they wouldn’t get to at a more suburban high school. They actually get to be part of the fabric of the city.

The location of the high school is one of its greatest assets, including the opportunity to be fully immersed in an urban environment. While many of our students have grown up only a few miles away, I don’t think most of them have spent much time at all in this area.  It gave our students another view into the ways in which San Jose is a classroom – not just a literal classroom located in downtown San Jose, but part of the extended learning experience.

Finding the Founders

This first class is our founding class, and this visit to the new campuses emphasized the important role our students play – we wanted them to understand that they truly are an important part of the process and that they have control in shaping this school. If you really want to have a soccer team, for example, then you can make that happen. If you want to put on a play, you can do that, too. If you really do want that taco truck – we’ll figure it out! 

Kids of this age don’t often get opportunities to access that founder’s energy, and we wanted to give our students a chance to embrace that challenge, to create something amazing or innovative or new. Being a founder means being proactive and saying, I want my high school to have these things. And I’m going to do my part to make that happen. By the time our founding freshman reach their 12th grade year, we can look back and see that we didn’t just inherit school traditions – we took full advantage of a rare opportunity and started them. It’s a fully different offering than any of the other private or independent high schools in our area. 

The Year Ahead as Hillbrook’s Interim Head of Middle School

I’m excited to take on this role this year because it’s Year Zero for the high school – we get to roll our sleeves up and take a look at how the entire middle school experience will connect to our high school, and design the pathways of educational experience. As an educator (and a parent of middle schoolers myself) middle school is such a fun age – this is where independence of thought and experience and interest really start to shine. The kids are starting to drive things, as opposed to you driving things – and so you’re trying to strike a balance between learning to follow their lead while still providing good structure. They’re gaining independence, but that doesn’t mean that they’re ready to go out and be completely alone in the world. 

Part of gaining independence is learning responsibility and how to be part of a community, and getting a solid grounding in values as they grow. I want our families to know that we – that Hillbrook – are providing opportunities for kids to grow both academically, socially, and interpersonally in a way that makes sense for them, feels good to them, and is fulfilling. What we want parents to know is this: you don’t need to worry – when it comes to your kids, we’ve got them. We’re supporting them 100% of the way.