'This School Is My Sanctuary': The Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Alternative High School. JSRI Working Paper No. 57

Recent studies and personal narratives suggest a connection between the low academic achievement of Latina/o students in the United States to the lack of care they experience in schools. The author reports on a study he conducted of the Chicago-based Pedro Albizu Campos Alternative High School, focusing on the experiences of its students and teachers. He found that for a school to be effective for Latina/o students and other students of color, it must become a "sanctuary" in that the school fosters student-teacher caring relationships, provides a familial type environment to ensure that its students are not marginalized, provides a gang-free safe space, and affirms students' racial and ethnic identities. The purpose of this article, then, is threefold. First, the author briefly describes the high school. Second, he highlights students' voices and their descriptions of the "school as sanctuary" concept. Third, he describes the teachers' experiences pertaining to their difficult task of maintaining the high school as a sanctuary for its students.