For years, Central Union High School, situated in a low-income California neighbourhood just north of the Mexican border, was struggling with poor test scores and overall low student academic achievement. But thanks to hard work by the school's teachers, administrators, students, and parents, the high school has, in recent years, been achieving significant academic growth. In 2007, Central Union was named by the state as a Distinguished School because it had substantially higher performance than predicted. This designation is especially encouraging given that many of the students are English learners.