“In the Shadow of the Happiest Place on Earth”: Schools as Community Institutions in Anaheim

Abstract

It has been my great good fortune in this life to work, in different ways and at different times, with two extraordinary educators. I have known Pedro Noguera, now Dean of the Rossier School of Education at USC, for upwards of 30 years, since he was my undergraduate professor at UC Berkeley. I have known Michael Matsuda, Superintendent of the Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD), since we initiatied a robust partnership for leadership preparation between our two institutions in 2018. In Hebrew, a shadchan is a matchmaker. When I read the call for this special issue of VUE, with its focus on schools as community institutions, I thought of them both. My role was mainly that of shadchan; I proposed the Conversations in Urban Educationersation to the two of them, and edited the published version into something comprehensible for a reader outside of the California context. Dean Noguera and Superintendent Matsuda had met before; on December 16, 2021, Noguera interviewed Matsuda via Zoom, and the district produced a transcript. That interview, edited for comprehension as well as flow, is provided below. Matsuda has served as the superintendent of AUHSD for eight years. It is a large, urban school district located in Orange County, not far from Disneyland. AUHSD is a majority minority school district that covers five cities, including Anaheim. The district enrolls over 29,000 students, and about 45 different languages are spoken by the families it serves. It is a gateway community that serves large numbers of refugee immigrants. Demographically, the district is predominantly Latin-X, (65%), with another 20% of its students from Asian and Pacific Islander backgrounds. The overwhelming majority of students are from low-income households, with a substantial number (approximately 4,000) who lack stable housing.