Reality Show: Class and the Classroom

What’s life really like inside an affluent suburban middle school? Specifically, what kind of day is in store for a child whose parent enjoys the day playing tennis because he is sitting on the inheritance of a cereal company? Or, what is a mom really teaching her son who takes private “dribbling” lessons from a former Harlem Globe Trotter. Are these privileged children actually learning about diversity with only 1% of their campus African American?

This is Piedmont Middle School, the only middle school of this tree-lined town which sits like a puddle within the boundaries of Oakland.

The stats:
79% of the residents are White
70% of the residents are married couples
47% of households have children
Median household income is $134,000 (for a family: $149,000)
98% of the Piedmont High School graduates go on to colleges, such as: UC Berkeley, Harvard, Yale, or MIT

This bedroom community boasts residents like “Green Day” band member Tre Cool, Pixar executives, and 7-figure attorneys. Life began here in the early 1800s when Don Luis Peralta began selling and developing more than 14, 000 acres (which at the time included parts of present-day Oakland and Berkeley). Then Walter Blair started a dairy and continued from there. Piedmont, which translates from Italian to “foot of the mountain” became a recluse of summer homes for fogged-in San Franciscans. During the roaring twenties it earned the nickname “city of millionaires”. (Today, those millionaires’ mansions are still standing.) Years and more development later, 1976 arrived and the city built a middle school.

Just rambling more than 600 acres, Piedmont hosts several parks, three elementary schools, one middle school, two high schools, a recreation center with outdoor pool and tennis courts, a skate park, several baseball fields and soccer areas, a convenience store, barber, gas station, two neighborhood papers, oh, and three banks.

Some famous past Piedmonters include former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, actor Clint Eastwood, Baltimore Raven Drew Olson, and author Jack London.

So, imagine growing up in this silver-spoon town. What kind of dramas might an adolescent tackle on a daily basis? Not knowing which Luis Vitton purse to wear on Spirit Day? Deciding between Greenpeace and Peta for your annual charity? How about remembering to bring enough cash for a dime bag of pot. Or, maybe, you need to devise the best way to carry a fifth of vodka to school. These suburban socialites never forget their homework, have trust funds ready to support their college educations, but some of them may actually get kicked out for selling dope or even wind up in Juvenile Hall for threatening kids in the locker room with a switchblade. (Hey, maybe it was a gift from some Rock Star.)

In all, these students bring a whole new meaning of class to the classroom. There’s the Language Arts final of poetry reading at a classmates mansion. There’s the screenings of movies for a daughter or son and his or entire class. And, let’s not forget their teachers who earn sometimes one-third the salary of their parents. But, of course, many teachers at PMS receive a nice $500 gift certificate to Macy’s for Christmas.

So, maybe this community needs a dose of reality, or, at the very least, some