At first glance, Araceli Haro, 18, and Victor Betancourt, 19,
aren’t so different. Both attended Gilroy schools. Both dreamed
about their futures. And both ran into stumbling blocks during
their senior year at Gilroy High School.
At first glance, Araceli Haro, 18, and Victor Betancourt, 19, aren’t so different. Both attended Gilroy schools. Both dreamed about their futures. And both ran into stumbling blocks during their senior year at Gilroy High School.
But Haro has a piece of paper that validates the 13 years she spent in a classroom, a piece of paper that could mean the difference between a steady job or unemployment. Betancourt doesn’t.
Dressed in a rumpled T-shirt and baggy shorts, Betancourt sat in the shade of his family’s carport near Eliot Elementary School, explaining the chain of events leading up to his departure from public schools.
“One day I just stopped going,” he said with a shrug.
His high school years plagued by discipline problems, Betancourt was suspended for fighting in his senior year. He has been in and out of the justice system since he was 15, he said. After serving his suspension, principals told him not to back, he said. He called it quits after a halfhearted stint at a continuation school in Morgan Hill. He is one of thousands of high school students that drop out every year. In the Gilroy Unified School District, one in four high schoolers drop out, according to a report released by the California Department of Education.
These days, Betancourt passes his time sleeping and trying to get a job.
“I think about going to college,” he said. “But maybe I’m not made for that.”
“Victor became a number just like everyone else,” said Victor Cid, Betancourt’s uncle, as he stood at his nephew’s side. “He’s had some challenges. The district knew what the challenges were and did their best.”
“He didn’t have to be another stat,” Cid said. “You can’t get through life without a high school diploma and two years of college.”
While Betancourt is filling out applications at the outlets, Haro is looking forward to beginning her studies to become a nurse. In danger of not graduating because of a commonly known ailment that targets only seniors in high school, she struggled to catch up on the 10 credits that threatened to keep her from walking with her class. Her senioritis, paired with classes that she said weren’t engaging, could have left her in the same situation as Betancourt – labeled as a dropout.
But she was recruited by counselors at the College and Career Center at GHS, tacked a few extra hours onto her daily workload and graduated on time.
“Perhaps our curriculum lacks the relevance our students need to make real world connections,” said Paymon Zarghami, a former algebra teacher at GHS, explaining the obstacles that prevent students from learning. Zarghami will help open a charter high school in San Jose as part of the Knowledge Is Power Program, a successful national network of free, open-enrollment schools that prepares students for college.
“Offering a rigorous and relevant curriculum is within the control of schools,” Zarghami said. “It is possible to motivate them (students) through engaging teaching and curriculum.”
Zarghami named real-world relevance and strong connections as two factors that keep kids in school.
“Perhaps our at-risk students lack meaningful relationships with teachers, academic coordinators and school leaders,” he said.
“Every student needs a mentor,,” said Erin Gemar, director of the Cal-SOAP program, a program that provides college opportunities for low-income and first-generation students.
With a student to teacher ration of 35 to 1 at GHS, “not every student is making a meaningful connection,” she said.
Gemar named other components, like home life and teacher support, that, when lacking, can contribute toward the dropout rate.
“Our system, nationwide, is not structured to give every student the same opportunities,” she said. “The system is so large, changing it is like stopping a train.”
Although it claims one of the highest dropout rates in the county, trustees say the district has made an effort to address the problem. Programs like Advanced Path and after-school tutoring offer an extra push to students at risk of dropping out and there’s a renewed interest in vocational training.
The district is pumping up its vocational offerings. The new Christopher High, scheduled to open next year, will house a performing arts and digital media program, funded by a career technical education grant, while GHS has recently received a $35,000 planning grant to fund a new biotechnology course.
A study session to address the dropout data has been tentatively scheduled for Sept. 4.
Confusing to many, the numbers that show a 26.7 percent dropout rate in Gilroy come from a complicated formula that uses student-level data to derive four-year estimated dropout rates.
When a student enrolls in a California public school for the first time, he or she is assigned a number that will remain for the duration of the student’s education, as long as the student stays in California. If a student transfers from another public school in the state, he or she is assigned the same number in his or her new district. Sometimes there are mistakes, said Rob van Herk, director of assessment and data systems with the district, and students are assigned a new number or the wrong number.
The data is further complicated by a list of 29 codes that are assigned to a student when they leave high school for one reason or another. The biggest source of error in reporting the dropout rate comes from confusing students who enrolled in another district and students who said they were going to do this, but didn’t, van Herk said.
Districts have until the end of August to “clean up” the data, meaning that they track down students, one by one, to pinpoint their whereabouts.
Van Herk estimated that the rates would drop a few points in every category after the cleanup.
