A South County Middle School’s Winning Formula: High Expectations, Hard Work and a Pirate Ship

How do you make a pirate ship out of metal folding chairs? 

Ask the students at Southwest Middle School in San Ysidro. They just did it. 

A few weeks ago, as part of Southwest Middle’s annual Fall Festival, students converted part of the school cafeteria into a recreation of a scene from Disneyland’s beloved Pirates of the Caribbean ride. 

The centerpiece: A roughly 10-foot-tall pirate ship constructed from a stack of metal folding chairs, brown construction paper, cotton sheets and an old bed frame found on the street and hauled to school by one of Southwest’s science teachers. 

A skeleton in pirate regalia stood at the bow, one bony hand resting on a ship’s wheel. 

The pirate room was just one of many recreated scenes along what the school calls its Haunted Trail, a cornerstone of the annual fall festival. 

Other parts of the trail, which snaked around most of the campus, featured famous horror movie characters leaping out of shadowy niches, a graveyard from the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and a student-made collection of dolls with sewing buttons for eyes inspired by the children’s book “Coraline.” 

And that was only one part of the Oct. 30 festival. 

While roughly 600 people, according to ticket sales, lined up to make their way through the haunted trail, students elsewhere on campus performed a cheer routine to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” played “Hotel California” and “Viva Mexico” on steel drums and mariachi instruments, staged a farmer’s market highlighting produce grown in the school’s hydroponics program and scorched through a rendition of the White Stripes song “7 Nation Army” with the school rock band. 

Southwest Middle School serves some of San Diego County’s lowest-income and highest-needs students, according to federal education statistics. Roughly 80 percent of the school’s student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. Half of students are English language learners. 

The school is in walking distance from the Iris Avenue Transit Center used by commuters from Tijuana, and teachers said many of their students either cross the border to attend school or live with relatives in the United States while other family members remain in Mexico. 

And yet, at a time when many American schools still seem confounded by the challenges of post-pandemic education, Southwest Middle is on a winning streak. Enrollment and test scores are up, according to state statistics. Absences and suspensions are down. Students routinely arrive at school early and stay late. 

The Oct. 30 fall festival, largely designed and executed by students themselves, was an evening-long manifestation of the artistic creativity, close-knit community and hard work that permeate the school. 

“The culture that exists here, it’s a really cool place,” said Principal Hector Ornelas, who came up with the idea for the festival and was one of the last people to leave the school on Oct. 30. He said he was still on campus helping to clean up at 11 p.m. 

“Everyone knows the students,” Ornelas said. “We know all their names and we know what’s going on. But we also have all these programs for them where a kid can find their niche and discover themselves.” 

“They know there’s an expectation of where you need to be,” Ornelas said. “And if you’re not there, we’ll get you the support you need to get there.” 

The formula at Southwest Middle is straightforward and does not involve revolutionary methods or expensive technology. School staff set high expectations, put in the work to help kids succeed and provide a menu of educational options varied enough to engage even the most school-averse student. 

“I wish I could say it was a magic sauce, but it’s been a work in progress,” said science teacher Erin Barron of the school’s ethos. “It’s putting value in the students themselves.” 

Since 2022, the year Ornelas became principal after serving two decades as a teacher and administrator in other Sweetwater Union High School District schools, Southwest Middle’s major performance metrics all have trended in a positive direction, according to the California Department of Education’s school statistical dashboard. 

Chronic absenteeism declined from nearly a third of students in 2022 to just over 21 percent this year. Test scores in both math and English have risen, though both remain below state standards. Suspensions declined by more than half. 

Like at many schools that serve a low-income population, one of Southwest Middle’s toughest challenges is getting parents involved in school or just aware of what’s going on. 

Teachers said parents often work multiple jobs to pay living expenses, leaving little time to keep track of kids’ schoolwork. Simply getting family members to attend a school event is considered a major victory. 

By that measure, the fall festival was an unqualified success. Ornelas said roughly 1,000 people attended, including most of the school’s 508 students and many members of their families. 

“We wanted to create a space to bring families in and enjoy time with the students,” Ornelas said. “Bring them into the school, showcase some of the musical talent and performance-based talent we have.” 

In recent years, Southwest Middle even has begun to draw students from outside its attendance area. 

Bethany Case, who lives in Imperial Beach, said she could have sent her 13-year-old son, Cooper, to local Mar Vista Academy. But Cooper, she said, wanted to go to Southwest Middle after hearing about the school’s engineering and robotics programs, as well as its varied musical offerings and its high percentage of Spanish speakers. 

“He has really blossomed,” Case said of Cooper. “When he gets in the car on our way to school and on our way home, he is talking about something going on in school. And it’s never negative.” 

Ornelas said when he arrived at Southwest Middle in 2022, he immediately grasped students’ chief challenges. 

“A lot of our kids come with gaps in their education for whatever reason,” he said. “This is a really important age. This was where education became something [students] didn’t want to pursue anymore. I wanted to create an environment where…we could convince [students] there is a pathway forward. There’s something here for you.” 

To foster that environment, Ornelas said he worked closely with teachers, who already had started a tradition of staging what they call school-wide STEAM Challenges. (STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math.) 

The challenges, which take over the entire campus several times a year, have included designing and marketing an imaginary interplanetary colony, building a Rube Goldberg contraption and, one recent fall, making Halloween costumes from upcycled materials. 

Ornelas also made sure the school’s mariachi and steel drum bands had the equipment and resources they needed. In his spare time, he started a rock and roll band for students who, in his words, “aren’t the best athletes” and don’t fit in anywhere else on campus. 

There are now two rock bands, beginner and advanced. Case’s son, Cooper, plays drums in one. Both bands, judging by their performances at the fall festival, have a dedicated fan following. 

The moment the bands took the stage and began wailing through songs by Green Day and Nirvana, a horde of student groupies pressed forward, screaming and taking pictures. One of the singers, radiating pre-teen cool, wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words, “I love emo girls.” 

Last year, it appeared one cornerstone of the school’s ability to cater to multiple kinds of students faced possible cancellation. Longtime award-winning mariachi and steel drum teacher Keith Ballard announced his retirement and warned parents the district, which faces budget challenges, might axe Southwest Middle’s arts funding. 

Ornelas teamed up with Ballard (who, by his own admission, has not always gotten along with school administrators) to ensure the teaching position was filled. He recruited a professional mariachi musician named Pablo Diaz, who already had been volunteering in Ballard’s class and himself had graduated from Sweetwater Union High School District schools. 

Diaz said he was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and moved to the United States at age 8 when his father, who worked as a restaurant security guard, was shot and killed by thieves. 

Like many of his students, Diaz said he and his siblings often fended for themselves while their mother worked 15-hour days in a string of retail jobs. 

“I can connect with those kids,” Diaz said of his students. “I come from a very similar background in how music helped me along the way to make better decisions.” 

Diaz said he lets his students rehearse at their own pace and pick songs they want to learn. But, like other Southwest Middle teachers, he said he sees no reason why students from disadvantaged backgrounds can’t learn complicated subjects. He has infused the mariachi program with lessons in music theory and cultural history. 

“I’m not just teaching the reading or the music or the songs,” he said. “I want them to be familiar with the artists who sing the songs and some of the history of mariachi.” 

The classroom where Ballard taught now features, alongside photos of previous years’ school bands playing for the likes of former President Bill Clinton, an elaborate Dia de Los Muertos shrine and a wall of photos of famous mariachi artists. 

A portrait of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo stares down at students from the center of the shrine. 

Eighth grader Jacob Rodriguez said he and other Southwest Middle mariachi players “miss Mr. Ballard [because] Mr. Ballard was more hard on everyone and was teaching us quickly.”

But Rodriguez said he also appreciates Diaz’s looser, more culturally attuned approach. “Mr. Diaz is nice about letting us learn at our own pace,” he said. 

Perhaps no measure of Southwest Middle’s ability to keep students engaged stands out more than the former students who come back year after year to help staff the fall festival. 

The festival itself began in 2023, inspired by a haunted trail Ornelas and his family created in their backyard while housebound during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many students who attended the festival before moving on to high school now return to help other students enjoy the fun. 

On the evening of Oct. 30, former Southwest Middle students Luis Buelna and Angelina Hamel sat at a table laden with fresh foods for sale, some harvested from the school’s hydroponics lab. 

Buelna and Hamel, who now attend Southwest High School, showed off bundles of school-grown herbs and green onions and reminisced about learning computer science and working on engineering projects with Barron, Southwest Middle’s STEAM coordinator. 

“She was my best teacher,” said Hamel. 

Both Hamel and Buelna said Barron had helped them compete in a nationwide drone-building contest, including chaperoning the school’s drone team on a trip to Salt Lake City, where the team competed with other schools from around the United States. 

Barron helped students raise money to cover travel costs, Buelna and Hamel said, and drove the team around Salt Lake City with the help of her husband. 

“This school helps to bring the community together in a great way and give opportunities to kids,” said Hamel. 

Barron (who also happens to be the teacher who spotted and hauled to school the discarded bed frame used for the fall festival pirate ship) said she shares the Southwest Middle ethos of setting a high bar for students and helping them find their niche. 

“Sometimes these kids don’t have high expectations placed on them,” she said. “But we build a culture where we let them know we have high expectations of you if you’re going to be part of this community.” 

Ornelas said Southwest Middle recently gained designation as a so-called Community School. The school will receive extra funds to hire a community coordinator tasked with boosting parent involvement and arranging for services such as health screenings and life skills training that aim to help families remain engaged with school. 

During a recent interview, Ornelas repeatedly credited Southwest Middle staff members who put in extra time to ensure kids succeed. He cited Chris Alvarez, the school’s after-school program coordinator, who arrives early each morning to supervise rock band rehearsals and volleyball practice. 

Ornelas himself said he routinely works 10-hour days and rarely stops thinking about ways to improve his school. 

“I think it’s just my personality,” he said. “I feel like I’m just one part of the team and that includes me with our teachers. I feel like in my blood I’m a teacher.” 

“They’re at an age where we want them to try things out and become their best self,” Ornelas said of his students. “We created a system where we’re helping those kids and families say, ‘Hey, your kid needs to be here.’ And we need them here.” 

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