The California Report: The Sneakout Program

A California Report Special Edition

The Sneak Out Program:
One Community's Rebellion for Better Education

A special, extended documentary about a little-known, but compelling, chapter in California's education history. Originally aired August 31, 2007.
Listen (RealMedia stream)

Clarene Watts and Ken Freiberg outside the Freiberg house in 2007. In the late 1960s, two of Watts' children, Mary and Michael, lived with the Freibergs and their five children so they could attend Cubberley High School in Palo Alto.

Photo slideshow

East Palo Alto is a small, poor, and predominantly minority city located in the heart of the Silicon Valley and next door to the affluent Palo Alto. It was here, in the 1960s, that a young mother, barely educated herself, organized the Sneak Out program. The program secretly sent African American children to live with white families in Palo Alto so they could attend better schools. As with most rebellions, this one came with sacrifices. To really understand the passion behind this act of civil disobedience in California, we go back in time recalling an era in the deep south, when few people cared that separate was unequal.

Web Extras:
More Stories of Sneak Out

	Robert Mitchell (student) "During the day, during school time, I would hang with other black kids, but then I was in sports, and you know my teammates were mostly white, so I hung with them too, and we got along fine." Listen (3:08)
	Eleanor Kraft (host) "People drove by, saw this black kid throwing a football in the neighborhood and I was afraid some of them were going to hit the telephone pole because they were so busy staring at this; and not happily I would imagine." Listen (3:01)
	Margaret Tinsley (parent and activist) "I didn't feel militant at all -- I just felt I was looking for a better education for my kids." Listen (2:46)
	Gelsomina Becks (parent) "I asked her the other day, 'Do you remember talking about it?' She said, 'Well, you didn't ask me if I should go, you said I should go.' That was an accepted fact, that she was going to go and it would be better for her." Listen (3:10)
	Becki Cohn-Vargas (student) "To bring a group of students from East Palo Alto and put them in the program at Cubberley without a lot of preparation led to a lot of miscommunication and a lot of misunderstanding, unfortunately... It wasn't being handled well by the administration." Listen (1:23)

Related Links:

Cubberley High's 1967 graduation program [pdf] - class president, Danny Wilks, class secretary, Linda McDonald, and David Rages were active at Cubberley High as well as being the school's first Sneak Out students.
Opening the Door - article about Margaret Tinsley's crusade. From the Palo Alto Weekly (September 2, 2002).
The Conscience of a Community: Integrating Mid-Peninsula Schools 1969-86 [pdf] - includes the final ruling in the Tinsley case.
PAUSD Voluntary Transfer Program - instructions for East Palo Alto parents to apply for voluntary transfer to Palo Alto under the Tinsley decision.
The Changing Racial and Ethnic Composition of U.S. Public Schools - from the Pew Hispanic Center.
Herman Ohme's web site - still teaching after all these years.
Ron Jones' web site - Cubberley High teacher during Sneak Out.

Staff:
Kathryn Baron, reporter and producer
Victoria Mauleon, producer
Suzie Racho, director
Ingrid Becker, senior producer
Bruce Koon, news director
Gabriel Coan, senior online editor
Ceil Muller, technical engineer


		The California Report is KQED's statewide radio news program, providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions affecting California and its diverse population.