During the Thanksgiving-ish feast at my children’s school, we went around the table sharing what we were thankful for. When it was my turn, I announced, “I’m thankful for my healthy, happy kids, and their fantastic school.”

Last year around this time, I was still saying to myself, regarding our choice of kindergartens, “Are we really going to do this?”

My wife and I have been involved for the last two years with a group of parents and community members dedicated to nudging the local public elementary into the renaissance of our funky urban neighborhood in San Diego. The school zone includes the best restaurants, coffee shops and brew pubs, the highest density of creative professionals and some of the most jaw-dropping house prices in the city; and yet, for our pride in all things “local,” our little school has been neglected by the population it was meant to serve. Essentially, the “school choice” movement, embraced by our district for decades, encouraged concerned parents to “choice” their children into niche magnet schools, themed charters, or typical public schools in other neighborhoods where the scores were higher and other data less daunting to them.

As a result, the majority of students attending our local elementary have likewise “choiced in” from other, less socioeconomically and ethnically diverse neighborhoods than ours. The most recent statistics show that 80 percent of our students are eligible for free or reduced meals, 48 percent are English learners and 70 percent identify as Hispanic. There are no other numerically significant ethnic groups. I understand how it might be difficult for the savvy school-shopper to see past these demographic data.

When our school-support group first convened, most of our children were preschoolers. None of us had any children enrolled in the school, and few of us even knew any families who sent their children there. We were operating under the premise that, if we all sent our children to the local school, we could affect the culture enough that it would become the kind of school where more people from the neighborhood would want to send their kids. We would disrupt the vicious cycle and convert it to a virtuous one, and the student body would reflect the diversity of the neighborhood. Continue reading on NYT.com…