San José Unified's vision is "Preparing today’s students to be the thinkers, leaders, and creators of tomorrow." The district's mission is "Uniting as one community, we elevate opportunities for all."
History
San José Unified School District was established in 1853 as the San Jose City School District. The district adopted its present name in 1936. In 1863, the district opened San Jose High School, the second-oldest public high school in California. In 1953, the district took over operation of San Jose City College from San Jose State College. State law originally required school districts to be coterminous with city limits. San Jose's rapid expansion under city manager Dutch Hamann caused territory to be transferred to the San José Unified School District from the surrounding rural school districts. The rural districts used lawsuits to delay or block annexations in an attempt to preserve their tax bases. In 1954, the state passed a law allowing school districts to have distinct boundaries from cities, mostly confining San José Unified School District to its boundaries at the time. Christensen cites the resulting hodgepodge of school districts within San Jose as a contributing factor in the city's "fragmented politics, lack of identity and racial segregation". The law also required certain elementary districts to either build their own high school or be annexed by a district that already had a high school. Thus, in 1956, the voters in Almaden Union School District elected to merge with San José Unified. In 1971, parents in San Jose filed suit against the school district to force school integration. The district claimed that any racial segregation was due to housing patterns, not explicit policy. However, in 1984, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued a desegregation order for the school district, embarrassing local officials. The district responded by opening magnet schools and busing students. In 1983, federal bankruptcy judgeSeymour Abrahams declared the school board bankrupt under Chapter 9. The judge rolled back employee wages. In the late 1990s, a fire sprinkler broke in the basement of the district office, destroying many of the district's historic documents. District staff and local historians have been working ever since to rebuild the district archive. By 2017, a high cost of living and housing shortage had contributed to the district's declining enrollment. Over 164 years, San José Unified has supported 53 elementary schools, of which 26 remain active as of the 2017–2018 school year. Additionally, the district supports six comprehensive middle schools, six comprehensive high schools, a continuation high school, and an alternative education school.
