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Thursday, March 29, 2001
Panel: Dropout problems often start early
Young people need mentors and motivation
From staff reports
 |
| George Gongora/Caller-Times |
| Dalinda Osborne, 17, gave birth to her son, Jordan, when she was 15. Dalinda attends KEYS Academy in Kingsville, which she credits for her success in school. 'If it wasn't for KEYS, I couldn't go to school because I don't have a baby sitter all day to go from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.' |
The reasons students drop out of school are as different as the strategies for trying to keep them in school, said educators and students brought together by the Caller-Times for a panel discussion.
Education officials who participated in the panel discussion included Troy Nickleson, dropout intervention specialist for Corpus Christi Independent School District; Arturo Delgado, director of student services for CCISD; Linda Villarreal,deputy director for instructional services at the Region 2 Education Service Center; Mariah Boone, program manager at the Juvenile Assessment Center; Roel Lara, principal at Robstown High School; and Mary Ann Colin, principal at KEYS Academy, an alternative school in Kingsville.
Three students from KEYS Academy - Alexis Mata, Albert Cruz and Dalinda Osborne also participated.
Following are excerpts from the discussion:
Dropout causes
 |
| Paul Iverson/Caller-Times |
| West Oso High School student Albert Ponce reads the rules before taking the exit-level TAAS test earlier this year. Those who participated in the panel discussion said the test contributes to the dropout rate and that the impact likely will worsen as TAAS standards are increased in 2003. Some also said the test places undue pressure on youngsters. |
Mariah Boone: "I have been involved in a project called YOU in Nueces County. . . .We found we had a lot of family management and family pain management problems, and extreme economic deprivation. We have a lot of child abuse and neglect and again, it kind of fits and is all tied up with extreme economic deprivation.''
Mary Ann Colin: "These children started at a disadvantage at an early age. They didn't go to preschool or nursery school, their parents didn't read to them, so now it is having an impact. A lot of these kids now have social, academic and economic problems. Along with that comes other things, such as lack of self-esteem, motivation and goal setting. We also find that we have a lack of role models for these students who come from these poverty levels. They don't really have role models to look up to."
Arturo Delgado: "I believe that truancy is another factor in that students a lot of times get used to staying home, are not motivated to go to school and they develop bad habits of not going to school and being tardy to school, and not taking responsibility to notify teachers as to why they were absent. As a result, the state requires the student to have 90 percent attendance, and if they miss a certain number of days, they are already too far behind. When they return we need to make sure that we welcome them back and help them make up the days missed."
Dalinda Osborne: "I was raised to be a good student, and I still am. But I got married. I had a baby, and I could have had a truancy problem. A lot of it's not only where dropouts are from when they are younger. Some have no choice. If it wasn't for KEYS, I couldn't go to school because I don't have a baby sitter all day to go from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's not always that we weren't brought up right. Some of us have no choice."
Overcoming obstacles
Panel Discussion
For audio clips of the panel's discussion, please use the links below: |
Roel Lara: "We have got some very bright kids dropping out because they choose to go to work and help the family out. So, we try to work with them. We understand. There are a lot of kids that want certain things. They are very mature for their age and they choose to go to work and support themselves. We have a handful who live on their own and support themselves. They feel this is acceptable. Their intentions are good, but they choose to go to work."
Colin: "The students need to have the support of the family and of the home, and we find that a lot of the students that have low grades don't have that support mechanism."
Alexis Mata: "I have friends who want to graduate, but they are lacking the credits. It's up to them. They have to set a goal for themselves to get those credits, to make time to go to school, to take the classes they need. But I think it's really up to the individual. I'm pregnant right now. I didn't plan it but I've been working my butt off so that I can graduate with my class this year. It's hard, but if you want to do it, then you'll do it. It has to do with your attitude towards what you want to get."
Osborne: "If they don't believe in themselves, then they won't graduate. That's the way I see it. I'm 17... and I will graduate this year. I did it because I wanted to. A few days ago I said, 'I can't do it, it's too hard, I can't, I can't, I'm tired of this work. I go to school, I go to work, I go home. It's the same thing every day, and I'm tired.' But my mom would say, 'you can do it.' My husband would say, 'you know you can do it because you're smart.' You have to have someone who can push you, someone who can say, 'you can do it.'''
Linda Villarreal: "If you don't have children experience success when they first go to school and feel good about themselves and catch them when they're really young, then you've lost them. It's not at (high school) age, it's not at middle school, it's happening in early childhood education. If you have children who can succeed in kindergarten and feel good about themselves in kindergarten, they are going to go on and feel good about the following grade. The highest retention rate is in ninth grade and first grade. And in first grade, to know that you are a failure, what kind of pattern is that going to set for this child's life? (Students who) fail in first grade have a 50 percent chance of becoming a dropout."
Alternative Schools
Colin: "Before (KEYS Academy) came about the dropout rate in Kingsville was 12.9 percent. That's very, very high. Our school motto is 'Open the door to a different approach to learning.' And it's not watered down, it's just different. We have computer system instruction, we have individualized instruction, we allow the student to work at his own pace and earn credits whenever he finishes. We feel that the students have already failed at the traditional high school, so why set up our students for failure (by having them do it the same way)? Everything is non-traditional. We don't even have bells at our school, other than the first bell at 8:00. We don't have desks, we have tables and chairs. We allow food and drink. We try to identify the needs, academic and social needs. Many of these students need other needs to be met, such as social services, the doctor and legal aid."
Albert Cruz: "Most schools these days are traditional and that's what makes these students not want to go to school because it makes it so boring. Everywhere they go they see the same thing. They might have lived in Texas for a while, they go somewhere else, everything else in that state will be different, except for the schools. All the schools are the same. If you make it more motivational, where the teachers are motivational speakers, you've got yourself a whole bunch of students with a whole different mindset."
Villarreal: "Research shows that with large numbers of students, it's difficult to personalize the curriculum for them. Students (in alternative schools) have personalized educational plans to help them graduate. But how many students at Robstown or CCISD, the larger school districts, have a personalized plan? Many of them don't. And if you don't personalize it and know exactly what their needs are there's a chance you might lose them."
The TAAS test
Villarreal: "There has to be a balance certainly. You don't want to forget what accountability has done. The TAAS test in itself, there are so many negatives about it, but there are also a lot of positives. We have more minority children and more children coming from poverty backgrounds that are performing now much closer to where more affluent children are. So, that in itself is great, but at what cost? Did we lose kids because the curriculum was so demanding? I don't think the curriculum is so demanding, but it's the presentation - the way it's presented to the student - that is really important.
"It's not going to get any easier. We could have another panel discussion in a year or two and talk about Senate Bill 103 and we can talk about what's going to be coming down, which is more testing, which is higher standards. It's going to be much different from what TAAS is. It's going to be more demanding and there's a law that says in third grade, if you don't pass a portion of the testing, you will be retained. So even with all the research on retention and what happens when we retain - of course there's good things and bad things about that - but it's not going to get any easier. The demands are going to get much, much more challenging."
Lara: "I think the dropout rate is going to get larger because of the TAAS pressure. We're going down to third grade and the pressure they are going to instill on these kids, I think, is outrageous. Instead of enjoying learning, the kids will be thinking, 'am I going to pass the test?'
"When the TAAS results come in, you see crying down the hallway and celebrating and that's too much for the students to go through. The pressure mounts. You don't pass it the first time as a sophomore. Junior, you don't pass it again. It builds up until you see you're not going to pass the test, and it's devastating. I see it getting worse."
Teachers and role models
Troy Nickleson: "That's one of the things that I do when I speak to teachers or groups like that when I'm training. One of the things I tell them is that (the students) don't care about how much you know, they just want to know that you care. And that's as simple as you can get."
Cruz: "Having someone to relate to like that, at a level where somebody is wiser or older, is good. Having them talk to you and you relating to them like that is important, and knowing that there's nothing you can do to break that bond."
Osborne: "A lot of teachers at our school are like that. They listen to Z95 and say 'you like this song? Oh, I like this song too,' or 'what did you do last weekend?' To me, that's a teacher. Somebody who can relate to their students, talk to them, not just stand there and teach.''
Colin: "One of the things we are doing at our school is placing students in a job for 186 hours of work experience. We also do job shadowing and we do volunteer work, and that's where they get to see some of the role models. We place them out in the community with the city, county and state government, in whatever agency we can. That's one of the ways we get them together with role models.
Lara: "I think along those lines the business community can help us out by encouraging the kids to continue in school. The problem we have encountered is like one of the kids told me the other day, 'well, my manager wants to give me 40 hours a week, but I can't do that and go to school.' I had to go talk to the manager and say 'wait a minute, help us out here. This kid wants to drop out so he can work 40 hours and there's no way.' So with that, the manager said we'll work something out. And with the manager's encouragement, the kid stayed in school. If (the businesses) find good workers, they're going to work them. With that, the kids are going to have to make a choice - job or school.''
Hispanic dropout rates
Colin: "I think Hispanic families love their children just like anybody else but they have disadvantages like housing, transportation, lack of education and a lot of other factors. Things that hold our children back."
Osborne: "When you're in school it's hard. I used to see my friends who have all this money. A lot of parents don't understand. It's very hard being a kid. There's some people that say, 'where did you get your shoes from?' And you're actually scared to say that you got them from Payless or embarrassed to say that you got them from Wal-Mart. You're actually scared."
Delgado: "I think Hispanic people need more role models. We need more professionals to speak to our youngsters and talk to them about college and setting goals. We need to talk to them about the future. To think about the future and not so much about griping."
Looking ahead
Boone: "I think that (the dropout problem) is pretty bad, but I also think I hear more people getting together to talk about it. I mean I don't think it's going to get any easier, but I do think we hear more and more solutions, and more people are willing to work together and not bring up the same old things. So I think we have a lot of opportunities to make it better."
Delgado: "We do have a problem with dropouts. Any time we have dropouts, we have a problem. I think as public school educators, we have to accept the children we receive as they are. We are not a private school. We cannot be selective. We have to accept the children and all the problems that they bring with them. I think our task is to try to see what we can do, what are some of the safety nets that we can use to catch some of these kids falling through the cracks?"
Nickleson: "We have a Buc Academy (at Miller High School). We should have a Ray Academy, we should have an academy at every school. You know, it's still one common goal. Why do for others? Do it throughout the district. Are you telling me that it can only happen at Miller? No.
"We know who the (at-risk) students are and we don't need to make excuses. We need to say, 'here's a list of your students, here's a list of their needs. Now what are you going to do about it as a campus?' We either educate them or they are going to get incarcerated, bottom line.
"It's real simple. Here they are. They are not going to go away. So what are you going to do?"
Villarreal: "You've heard it said and it's probably been overused, 'it takes a village to educate a child.' But more so than ever, every single person, every single stakeholder in the community, needs to be involved in the dropout issue. And I'm with (Nickleson). I agree 100 percent. We have the list, we have the information, we have what works and what doesn't work, and yet we continue to have the problem.''
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