School officials look for solutions
BY VÍCTOR MANUEL RAMOS
STAFF WRITER
Newsday (c), October 29, 2000
The browned roaches left from marijuana cigars were strewn in a small pile on the cracked surface of the wet concrete.
Scratched repeatedly in black ink over the pastel yellow of the brick wall, the “S.W.P. 15” tag made it clear whose turf it was near the handball court.
The Hempstead Village alley, a hangout for members of the Salvadorans with Pride street group that police label a gang, attracts some Hispanic teens who are dropouts or frequent class-cutters.
With the relentless popping noise of an air rubber ball crashing against a wall in the background, 17 young men just chilled there on a recent Tuesday afternoon.
Leaning against a drooping chain fence, slouching inside the rim of a worn-out tire or sitting on a concrete step, they were reluctant to listen as guidance counselor Eloy Indigoyen tried to persuade them in English and Spanish to return to school.
Instead of discussing after-school classes, Regents prep courses or GED tutorials, they wanted to rail against what they view as the unfair educational system that spit them out onto the streets.
“Nobody would help me out. I was just like another Hispanic kid in Hempstead that nobody cared about,” griped Andy Vanegas, an 18-year-old who left school in his junior year. “You get a lot of peer pressure,” he said, swinging his arms and body as he spoke. “You see a lot of people hanging outside…so you drop out.”
There is no simple answer as to why they do it, but state Education Department figures requested by Newsday show that Hispanics, particularly males, have the highest dropout rates on Long Island, reflecting what is a well-documented national trend.
Experts cite a host of factors, such as economic disadvantage, educational deficiencies inherited from other countries, teenage pregnancy, gang involvement, the language barrier and the prevailing perception among parents and students that they are foreign to the mainstream culture.
However, most experts agree on the urgent need for a better safety net for what they say is a growing number of Latino students who feel they are outcasts in a system that was not designed with their needs in mind.
“Schools here sort of use bilingual programs as dumping grounds,” says Indigoyen, a bilingual counselor at Hempstead High School who spends much of his time reaching out to potential dropouts. “Students are put there and then everyone forgets about them, as if they could just motivate themselves to stay in school.”
Carlos Vidal, associate dean in the School of Social Welfare at the State University at Stony Brook, calls the Hispanic dropout problem “a regional tragedy.” The author of a 1994 profile of the Hispanic population in Suffolk, Vidal says the numbers point to family and societal challenges faced by Hispanics on Long Island, especially those who are recent immigrants and are still seeking their way here.
State figures for the 1998-99 school year, the latest available, show that Hispanics were the segment of the high school population that had the highest dropout rates in both Nassau and Suffolk. Hispanic males left school at a rate of 4.9 percent, compared with 1.8 percent average for all students on Long Island. Hispanic females had a 3.5 percent dropout rate, the second highest.
Also with above-average dropout rates were male and female black students. White and Asian American students had better graduation rates, with their dropout percentages below the average.
State education officials said Hispanic students should benefit as the state raises standards for all students and requires better results from school districts.
“Essentially, these numbers show why the educational reform movement the state is leading is justified,” said John Soja, a supervisor with the state Education Department, who deals with at-risk students. “Philosophically, the hope is that by addressing the educational needs across the state, all of the students will benefit.”
At the national level, the U.S. Department of Education released a report on the subject last year. Not only did it show that Hispanics had the highest dropout rates in the country, but it also highlighted that they are less likely to pursue equivalency diplomas afterward.
“Districts all over the country have had trouble dealing with the needs of the Hispanic population,” said Melinda Ulloa, a U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman.
In the case of Vanegas, the former Hempstead High student, he showed warning signs since he started high school. He overextended his lunch period and cut classes, arrived at school late and failed to complete homework, he said.
But by the time the school notified his parents, it was too late for him to stay and complete the requirements.
“The principal just told me to go to Job Corps because I did not have enough credits,” said Vanegas, who at the time was already working nights at a restaurant. “But I was like, are you asking me to drop out of school?”
Some school administrators on Long Island said it is a daunting task for schools to face these problems alone, with increased pressure for better results and limited resources to establish comprehensive programs.
“It is very difficult to bring them up to the level of performance required on the state exams,” said John Lewis, president of the Nassau County High School Principals Association. “If a kid has to work eight hours a day, reads at a fifth-grade level in high school, has a transportation problem and his parents are not involved, it does not matter how much we do…unless we address those problems,” he added.
Needs were what drove Lorena Alfaro, now 21, to drop out of Brentwood High School about three years ago. A single mother since she turned 16, she felt guilty about leaving her months-old infant with her mother to go to school.
Alfaro also found herself nodding into drowsiness in class, because she worked nights at a plastic manufacturing plant. So, she traded the classroom for a better-paying job at a Deer Park factory.
The years Alfaro has spent cutting, scrubbing and packing metal computer parts at work made her think about her future. She started attending night classes last month in the Brentwood school district to prepare for the GED equivalency test.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m nothing, less than other people, because I know nothing,” Alfaro said in Spanish. “But I’m too young to give up now.”
Students in her situation would benefit from alternatives, such as vocational programs that would give them more time to graduate, said Ximena Zate, a bilingual director with Eastern Suffolk BOCES who is working with districts to offer extra help in career exploration, literacy and language learning.
Hispanic students also need to see bilingual professionals whom they can relate to in the schools, Zate said.
“The acculturation process is not easy, particularly for students who have come from countries where the educational system is very deficient,” said Carmen García-Gordon, a social worker with the dropout prevention program in Central Islip. The personal ties bilingual teachers, guidance counselors and social workers establish with the students can make a world of a difference, she said.
Recently, for example, García-Gordon drove to the home of Julieann Ortiz, a student she is counseling, to knock on her door, wake her up and drive her to school after she noticed her absence.
“I like that they care about you. They don’t want you to mess up your life,” said Julieann, 16, who moved here recently from the South Bronx. “I felt like nobody cared over there.”
Currently a freshman, Julieann was identified as a student in need of additional support because of her poor attendance record. She admits she stays home sleeping and watching television, simply because school is boring to her.
García-Gordon struck a deal with her. She would help Julieann get the part-time job she wanted if she promised to attend her classes regularly.
“When we are able to identify cases early on, we have a very good chance of making a difference,” said García-Gordon.
In Long Beach, Hispanic students have had better results because of what educators there say is constant outreach coupled with a dual language program, which teaches subjects in both English and Spanish. In the 1998-99 school year, for example, that district only reported one student dropout out of 236 Hispanic students in the program.
Maritza Meyers, director of the bilingual program at Long Beach Sr. High School, says she keeps a profile of every high school student in her program and regularly calls parents to keep them posted on their progress.
Their instruction is complemented by cultural activities and after-school tutorials offered by community groups such as Círculo de la Hispanidad, a nonprofit Hispanic organization.
“Most other districts just have 45 minutes of English as a Second Language instruction and they call that a bilingual program,” said Gil Bernardino, the group’s president. “The results here show that if our students are given the opportunity to succeed, they will succeed.”
Many districts are not prepared to deal with a large influx of Spanish-speaking students, said Pascual Blanco, president of La Fuerza Unida de Glen Cove, a community organization.
“This is not just a matter of schooling,” said Blanco. “It’s a matter of housing, language, culture and the very social structure in which students are growing. This is not just a Hispanic problem.”
He says he believes districts have to do a better job of reaching out to the community and developing new, more culturally sensitive approaches to their children’s education.
Liliana Aparicio, a Colombian immigrant who is PTA vice president at Glen Cove’s Robert M. Finley Middle School, says that even active Hispanic parents like her sometimes feel unwelcome in a setting that seems indifferent to their needs.
“The system has been designed for a culture and there is a social clique and, if you are foreign to that, it is very difficult to be involved,” Aparicio says. “If we can’t get parents to feel welcome, then it’s no surprise that we are leaving the children behind.”