was designed as a vérité examination of struggling institutions. So this group of high-school students, introduced as the style dictates without voiceover or talking-head segments, was going to be a prism through which to view the education system, gentrification and the challenges of enacting systemic change within a body that's resistant to even small modifications.was always going to be a certain kind of tragedy or clarion call.
It's important to note that Oakland High School isn't treated as some nightmare-scape of urban blight. Especially if you watch with a growing awareness of what's coming, the vérité approach allows for normality-nostalgia to set in. When the halls are full of young adult cacophony, some part of your brain knows that empty hallways are coming, that the tightly crowded lunchroom tables or the egregious public displays of affection are already relics.
Since they aren't aware of the dark direction their school year is heading in, the kids don't know to be guarded, to avoid beats that play as frivolous or glib.