Promising Practices to Improve Latinas' Graduation Rates

Transcript of Audio File:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

Today’s National Women’s Law Center teleconference. My name is Scott Washburn. I’m with PT Media, and our event today is promising practices to improve Latina’s graduation rates. I’d like to now introduce our speaker today Mrs. Lara Kaufmann. She’s a senior counselor at the National Women’s Law Center. So Lara if you’re there, it’s all yours.

LARA KAUFMANN: Thank you. I want to welcome everybody today, and I also want to remind you before we get started that you can ask questions by e-mailing them to Kolbe Franklin in my office, and her e-mail address is kfranklin@nwlc.org for National Women’s Law Center. And you can send e-mails at any time during the call and she will make sure that I see the questions that come in. So thank you in advance for your questions. We look forward to hearing from you.

So I want to briefly introduce myself. Again, I’m Lara Kaufmann from the National Women’s Law Center. I’m senior counsel here in our education and employment group. And the National Women’s Law Center has been working since 1972 to advance women and girls in school, at work, and in every aspect of their lives. And we’re very excited to be co-hosting this call with MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. [0:01:12.7]

I want to quickly introduce our speakers. The first speaker is Veronica Rivera who is a legislative staff attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, MALDEF. And there she focuses on education policy work and she previously served as a counsel with an Austin, Texas based law firm where she focused on municipal law with an emphasis on land use and real estate matters. And she’s also a former school teacher and has worked in the office of the Governor in the Criminal Justice Division. Veronica was elected to the Austin Community College Board of Trustees in 2004 and she served on that board until 2009 this year. And in addition, she’s participated on a number of boards and counsels including the Foundation Board of the Texas Community College Teachers Association, and she is a co-founder and board member of Las Compradres (sp?) Para Los Americas, I hope I didn’t butcher that too much, a network for Hispanic women. [0:02:20.0]

Our second speaker is going to be Dr. Mary Jane Garza. She is the Assistant Superintendent in the West Oso Independent School District in Corpus Christi, Texas. Dr. Garza obtained a BS in elementary education, two masters, one in psychology and in guidance and counseling. Her doctorate is in bilingual education and she did post graduate work in administrative leadership. And she has a broad range of professional experience including as an elementary school teacher, a high school counselor, and early childhood and junior high school principal, bilingual education director, assistant superintendent, and superintendent. Dr. Garza has served on several boards and has been president of many of them. They’re really too numerous to list but it’s quite an impressive list. She’s published several articles and has delivered many, many presentations throughout the country and internationally. And she’s been honored with several state, national, and local awards. And she’s here today to tell us about the West Oso Independent School District and what they have done to improve academic achievement and graduation rates, and we’re excited to hear about that. [0:03:34.7]

We also have with us Fanny Arroyo Oliveira who is the Director of Programs and Operations for Hispanas Organized for Political Equality. The acronym is HOPE. It’s a California non-profit organization dedicated to Latina leadership development, advocacy, and education. And as the Director of Programs, Ms. Oliveira is responsible for managing and implementing the youth leadership through literacy program which is a state wide youth leadership development program that serves up to 300 high schools Latinas per year. And she also manages the pilot program called Entre y Manas (sp?). It’s a coaching program for high school and college Latinas among other responsibilities that she has. And before joining HOPE, Ms. Oliveira implemented federal redevelopment grants for local chambers of commerce in disadvantaged communities. [0:04:29.9]

So welcome to all of you and just by way of background I want to mention a couple of things about the report that we release and the work we are doing. As I’m sure many if not all of you know there’s a huge drop out crisis in this country and over 25 percent of girls are not graduating from high school in four years. But those rates are worse for girls of color. And 41 percent of Latinas do not graduate from high school in four years with their class if they graduate at all. And that 41 percent rate is higher than the rate for white males and females, for Asian Pacific Islander males and females, and it’s also higher than the national average for all students including boys and girls. Almost half of Latinas ages 25 to 64 who don’t have their high school diploma, are unemployed. [0:05:22.4]

So when we look at the employments rates about 54 percent of them have jobs and clearly that’s a huge crisis in terms of the economic consequences it has on them and their chances for financial security long term. And with only 54 percent of Latinas being employed it’s very interesting to know that for Latino males who drop out of high school, 86 percent of them have jobs so there’s a huge gap there. And even for those who are employed, there’s a wage gap. There’s a wage gap for males and females in every racial and ethnic subgroup, but the wage gap is largest among high school dropouts. And Latinas who drop out and do manage to find work, earn an average annual of about $15,000.00 which is only 65 percent of what the Hispanic male dropouts earn. So it’s a significant wage gap there and 35 percent of them are forced to rely on Medicaid. [0:06:27.7]

So that’s just the big picture and in terms of this particular project we partnered with MALDEF. We’ve done a lot of work with them in the past and we decided to partner again focusing on the dropout crisis for Latinas. And our goals for this particular report listening to Latinas were to take a qualitative look at the educational experience Latinas are having in this country, to gather stories that illustrate the challenges Latinas face in U.S. schools and our report shares many of the quotes and stories we got during the course of our research. And I think our third goal to identify steps that can be taken to improve Latinas graduation rates and that’s part of what we’ll cover today. In fact, Veronica is going to over in more detail findings and the recommendations. [0:07:17.9]

But just to give you an idea of our methodology, we surveyed 335 young Latinas across the country. We did follow-up interviews with 21 of them, and we did focus groups with 26 of them. And then we surveyed also 45 adults including counselors, teachers, and program staff who work with Latina young. And we did follow-up interviews with 15 of those individuals. So I encourage you to check out our report if you haven’t seen it already. But in the meantime I am going to turn it over. I think just for context, part of our follow-up work for the report has been talking to people in the field who are working to help Latinas graduate and succeed. And we’ve been trying to find out what practices have been successful. So we wanted to connect people and provide them with access to the incites of experts in the field who are working on these issues everyday that may help to guide people in their efforts to make a difference in the lives of young Latinas around the country. So without further ado I would like to turn the floor over to Veronica Rivera from MALDEF. Veronica. [0:08:26.3]

VERONICA RIVERA: Thank you Lara. As Lara mentioned we partnered up with the National Women’s Law Center to issue this report and I’m providing the findings and our recommendations within our report. As she also mentioned Latinas are the fastest growing ethnic group in our nation and Latinas are the fastest growing group of females of school aged youth. Yet Latinas are dropping out of high school in an alarming number. What we found, although Latina students have high aspirations they are uncertain about how to actually achieve the goal of graduating and attending college. We found that racial discrimination and gender bias still plague Latina students. Teachers, administrators, and their own peers tend to have low expectations of them and treat them differently which lead Latina students to have lower expectations of themselves. [0:09:12.3]

Also, Latina immigrants face not only a language barrier but access to schools in general. Latina immigrants have a difficult time learning the language and subject matter when English language learner programs are under funded. In addition, many Latina immigrants worry about being detained or having their family members detained while at school so their attendance is affected. We also found that not only do Latinas have the highest teen pregnancy rate and teen birth rates of any other racial or ethnic group, but Latinas are also faced with having to fulfill family care giving responsibilities of younger siblings and elderly relatives which cause them to be absent more from school than Latino or other students. And again, in turn leads to them falling behind on their school work and becoming disengaged from their education. Role models, mentors, and an overall support system that includes both family and education support are needed to help Latinas succeed and graduate high school. [0:10:15.7]

So we made the following recommendations within our report. Part of what we recommended was that we need to invest in the future of Latina children by expanding access to affordable high quality childcare and early education. We should also connect Latinas with role models and engage them in goal setting. Schools should talk early and often to students about their short and long term aspirations. They should provide guidance and prerequisites for post secondary education. We also need to work with Congress to enact bills that assist students brought to the U.S. as children but who are not yet U.S. citizens the opportunity to attend college. And we need to ensure that school environments are culturally inclusive and free of race, ethnicity, and gender discrimination. We should also help Latino parents get more involved in the education of their children. And we recommend efforts to prevent teen pregnancy include the provision of comprehensive sex education for students. We also recommend that we support pregnant and parenting students within the schools when they are attending. And finally, we recommend requiring better data collection and promoting school accountability. [0:11:35.4]

Now I’d like to turn it over to Mary Jane who will be discussing some of the programs that are available.

MARY JANE GARZA: Thank you so much Veronica. Thank you to all of you who are currently listening. Currently my role as Assistant Superintendent is for curriculum and instruction, and accountability, and making sure that all students come to school every day, and that isn’t easy to do. West Oso Independent School District, for those of you who are wondering, is located in the south tip of Texas or about 120 miles southeast of San Antonio and about 150 miles from Brownsville. It’s a district that has approximately about 2,100 students. And so you can get an idea of our demographics, the population is as follows: 84 percent Hispanic, 14 percent African American, and the remaining 2 percent is a combination of Asian population. The other interesting thing about our district, 92 percent of our district has been classified as economically disadvantaged. When you look at our population of 1,200 students, about 60 percent of those happen to be females. So it’s interesting to note that the population is growing and our female population is growing. [0:12:56.7]

The other thing I want to impress upon you is that the reason that we’re very proud of what we’ve done in our district is two years ago we had a completion rate of 54 percent and that’s nothing anyone wants to brag about and a drop out rate of over 16 percent. And unfortunately out of that 16 percent, 14 percent of those happened to be females. Last year we graduated 72 percent and our completion rate was much higher and this year we graduated 92 percent and our drop out rate is 5 students which is less than one percent. So we’re very proud of what we’ve done, and I want to share with you what some of the things that we did because this impacted our female population and this also impacted the fact that out of the 92 percent that we graduated, 80 percent of that has gone on to post secondary education. And believe it or not it had nothing to do with money. It had nothing to do with bringing more people, but it was a matter of looking at what were we doing. [0:14:19.4]

And so what we began to look at was what is our public school, West Oso ISD, currently doing for students? And when I got the statistics, of course, it alarmed me, and the first thing we said to ourselves is why. And the next thing we said to ourselves what will we do about this. And as the Assistant Superintendent I went over to the high school sat down with some key people being the Principal, the Assistant Principal, all the counselors, and we began to talk about what did we have in place and how we arrived at what we currently have is by looking at the process and just asking what are we currently doing. And when we asked the question and we got in front of a whiteboard and began to write, okay what do we do when a student checks out, and we said nothing. And by that I meant they checked out through the attendance and off they went. We didn’t follow up to see where they were going or anything else. So it wasn’t difficult to determine that really the key was ourselves and so we began to put a process in place that began to look at every single day what did our attendance look like, what did our tardies look like, who was checking out, where were they going, and then we began to see a pattern. And that pattern evolved that many of our young girls, many of our young ladies, were just leaving school, and we didn’t even know. And the unfortunate thing about that many of them didn’t leave alone. [0:16:03.2]

So as we began to look at what did we need to do, we began to talk to the students. What was going on, why were they leaving, what could we do? Then we began to put the process together. In one years time we were able to increase the graduation rate to 72, and in two years time to 92. And how did that work? Well now we’ve got the system in place. No additional staff was hired the first year and what we simply did is every Monday we sit down and we look at the number of attendance, we look at the number of tardies, and we look at who’s checked out. Then we looked to see have we followed up with every student. One of the most interesting things we found out as we began to look at every single student that left and we discovered that many of young ladies that were leaving were pregnant was the fact that we had nothing available for them. [0:17:06.1]

So the first thing we began to do is say okay, what would they need, childcare. Second thing we began to say, what else would they need, transportation. So we looked around. We had the funding, that was not an issue, and easily enough we didn’t want to open up our own childcare but we had three childcare facilities that were close proximity. We had a bus that could accommodate the mother and the child with safety car seats and so we looked into that. So easily enough, that first year, we were able to take mother and child, the child to the daycare, the mother to school. We modified schedules for them and it was real interesting to see last year and the year before that as the mother’s graduated their children were right in front of them. You can’t help but get a smile on your face when you see that. So part of what we needed to do was just find out what were the needs of our population and how do we best suit them. [0:18:12.0]

One of the things we also did in our state we’re able to have what we call an optional flexible school day which means that we can modify the schedule for the student and still receive funding even though the student may not be at the what we call our funding period. So we instituted that. So we’re able to modify the schedules for our students so they can come to school whether it’s at 10:00, 12:00, or even in the evening for them. So a lot of what we’ve done is sort of looked to see what does our customer need and how to we modify it. Yes we have the traditional school of 8:00 to 4:00 but we also have the non-traditional school where we begin at 7:00 and go to 8:00 at night at times or Saturdays as well. [0:19:03.0]

Interesting to note that this year… Two years ago we had 15 young ladies that were pregnant. Last year was ten, and this year we began the year with three, and what’s interesting to note about that is that we’ve kept the same abstinence program because in Texas we do have an abstinence only policy. But it’s not so much the abstinence program, it’s the fact that the girls are coming to school, and they intermingle with every student. And other students see the trials and tribulations that are challenging them. And interestingly enough, no one has to say anything. They’re very well accepted by all students, but other students see that, and they say, “You know I admire you.” “I wouldn’t be able to do this.” And one of the things that we’ve noted is it’s not so much the program that we have, but its students talking to each student. [0:20:01.2]

Many times other districts will ask me to go and say okay, can you tell me about your program? And yes we do but one of the things that as I travel and work with other districts I say to them, “Let me see the processes you have in place.” “Let me see the systems you have in place.” “And then let’s talk about suggestions that you can do.” So part of what we have found is that we can take our existing resources and just redefine the way we do things. If you were to see us on a Monday morning, you’d see us with a roster of students, we’d be asking each other why is this student tardy, why are they tardy to this class, you’d see someone say, “Let me look into it, I’ll bring an answer by mid week.” Then we’d say okay, three students have checked out, where have they gone? And you’d hear her counselor this one went to this school, this one went to this state, this one went to this other place, and I’ve already followed up, and they’re being well taken care of. You’ll find that we drive students to neighboring schools to make sure that they’re checked in. You’ll find that our counselors will call neighboring counselors and say, “So and so’s about to leave our district, I know you’re going to welcome them.” “Would you like to have the schedule ahead of time?” For our young ladies that who are pregnant if they come to us and say we need somebody to take us to the doctor, we have communities and schools that’s right at our doorstep and they make arrangements. If someone says, “I don’t have clothing” we make arrangements for that. So that’s how we’ve been able to do that and I think we’re very proud of the fact that our goal this year is to graduate 100 percent and make sure 100 percent go either to a trade school or some type of further education that will get them into a position where they become the next generation of here’s what we need to do for our future generations. [0:21:54.2]

So thank you for allowing me to share the little bit we’re doing, but we’re very proud of what we’re doing so thank you. Fanny, it’s your turn.

LARA KAUFMANN: And let me just jump in and remind everyone if you do have questions for Mary Jane you are welcome to e-mail to kfranklin@nwlc.org. Fanny.

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: Excellent. Thank you so much. Well I’ll start by describing the program that I’ve been implementing for five years. Hispanics organized for political equality, or HOPE, formalize the youth leadership illiteracy program in 2004 to prepare high school students, and in particular Latinas in the eleventh grade to enhance their literature skills, ensure their high school graduation, and encourage their college moment. [0:22:44.3]

We service approximately 300 high school Latinas a year. They come from across the state but primarily we service them through two conferences that we have a year. And from that group of 300, we have a special focus group, if you will, a group of 28 that are selected by seven regional community partners. And those community partners are mostly high schools throughout the state. And this is a group that we extensively evaluate and follow up and continue to connect with throughout their eleventh grade and their senior year. And that’s the group that I’ll be speaking to you about. [0:23:29.9]

So our program consists in four sessions. The first session is a mandatory orientation with the parents or guardian and the representative from the school that we partner with. We do this orientation in conjunction with the school and they secure the location on campus that we’re going to be conducting the orientation. So parent participation in this orientation is mandatory so their daughter can be part of this program.

Session two is a three day session. We bring them all to a site in Los Angeles and we work on a lot of team building. We have young ladies from seven regions across the state and obviously we need to spend a good time in helping them get to know each other from their similarities to their differences. We also have a workshop on team pregnancy prevention. We do a financial literacy workshop. We talk a lot about college campus and actually do a visit to a local college. And one of the big highlights of this first session where they all come together is that we expose them to Latina professionals. [0:24:43.7]

One of the items in the report was the need for mentoring and role models, and this is something that the organization does very well that we expose them to Latina professionals that look like them, talk like them, and come from the communities that they come from.

On session three that’s a two day session. We take them to the state capitol and in Sacramento they have the opportunity to present the findings of the survey they’ve been conducting throughout the time they’ve been in the program. So the survey is basically asking their high school peers, particularly those in their senior year in high school, about what opportunities they see, and they focus on Latinas at their school. And they ask them are they taking the right classes, if they have class after high school, and so on. So they gather all that data and they put it together in a power point which can be accessed through our website. And the data they find, they have conversations about the information they gather and they formulate recommendations. So they go to the state capitol they meet with their state representatives, and they give them recommendations that ranges from they see the need to more access academic counselors. And so that’s what they leave behind when they go to the state capitol. [0:26:13.4]

They also have as part of their homework is to come back to communities and find a space, a group of individuals, that they can present their findings too. And usually this is a group of school administrators, or they do it at a staff meeting, or teachers meeting. They present to parents and their peers as well. And this is a way of starting the conversation about what are the needs that Latinas at their high school have to succeed. And it really generates a healthy conversation about what the rest of the student population needs for them to be successful.

And the last session of the program it’s a one day session and this is what we call the college boot camp. It’s an intense college application process session, and one of the things that we try to do here is give them as much individual attention as possible where we do one-to-one meetings with staff to assess the needs, to assess some of the fears that they might have come their senior year, and just to see what kind of support they need beyond the program. We also have one-on-one meetings with academic advisors at the college or university that we’re at. They review their transcripts. They bring to them the red flags and things that they should be concentrating on to ensure that they’re eligible to apply for a four year if they’re on that track. And we also take the opportunity to celebrate their achievements and to continue expanding their network of Latina professionals that they’ve been meeting throughout the six month program. [0:27:57.1]

Some of those successes high lights from the program is that we have 98 percent of the girls graduating high school on time. And we also have 82 percent of the program graduates and enrolls in college. So those are very high percentages given our numbers here in California.

There has been no teen pregnancies after the program once we incorporated a teen wellness workshop and provided them additional resources. So we were happy to see that they are taking the precautions and the measures to delay early pregnancy. And also part of the success is that we are seeing how these young ladies are going back to their communities, going back to their schools, and they’re implementing the curriculum that they’ve gotten from the program whether it’s exposing other students at their campus with other Latina professionals that can inspire them and encourage them to formalizing school clubs that help them talk about positive outcomes as they continue their education.

And we’re also starting to see some organizations that are implementing some of the curriculum as well. [0:29:13.1]

What has worked for us in the program, and thinking of people that are on the call that are educators or personnel on staff at a schools, our success really comes from how we outreach to the community, and go with community leaders or stakeholders, and they help make the introduction to the school. We find a school where we see that there’s a large Latina population or if there’s a smaller Latina population that there is a need, and we can help fulfill a need at the school. We also need the school administration to be supportive and supportive in the sense that they will assign a school staff member that will be advising the program and advising the girls that are selected for the program. [0:30:07.3]

Another element of success, and something that has worked really well for us, is that our program is meant to compliment existing programs at the school or with the organizations we’ve partnered with. We understand it’s only a six month program and it’s a small group of young ladies that we service, but the idea is that these ladies will develop leadership skills, and they will expand their knowledge to their peers and friends. And also a big element of the success of the program is that there’s parent participation and that parents are involved in the process very early on and that they know staff at the school, they know staff within our organizations that they can outreach to and connect if they have questions or problems to resolve. [0:31:01.8]

And just really quick, one of the items was lessons learned. If there’s any feedback that I can give about lessons learned it’s more about having that open conversation with school districts, and understanding the policy so that we can go into a school site, and implement a program like ours that requires students to be out of school for a certain number of days but that those days are seen as educational days and are days that will benefit their education. And obviously having a strong school advisor that will be accessible and that will be a resource to the young ladies going through the program. And I think this is a short snapshot of HOPE is implementing a youth leadership program to California. Thank you.

LARA KAUFMANN: Thank you Fanny. I want to start off with a question that I think can be directed to both of you. I think a lot of our listeners who may be interested in seeing programs like these in their areas are wondering about the funding question which Mary Jane you alluded to briefly. But if both of you could address how you were able to get funding for your programs and what kinds of challenges you faced and how you have overcome them, that would be terrific. [0:32:21.3]

MARY JANE GARZA: Well first of all the program itself that we’ve incorporated for the drop out recovery for let me pay attention to individual needs, that didn’t cost us any additional dollars. It’s just staff’s time that we allocated. Now in terms of the bus and in terms of the items that we needed for our young ladies who were pregnant, well communities and schools helped us a great deal but the other thing is I’m a proficient grant writer. I spent about 18 months with the U.S. Department of Education so I learned the ins and outs of how to write effective grants so part of what I do also in my leadership role here in the district is I’m always seeking external funding. And so basically a lot of the programs are complimented with a lot of state funding and federal funding. And right now for all the people that are listening this is a very good time to be writing. There’s a lot of stimulus dollars out there. There’s a lot of money out there and really the applications are not that difficult to do. All you’ve got to do is read them carefully and that’s what takes time sometimes. They’re not written in the biggest print and sometimes people say oh no, this’ll take too long. But if you’ll take time to read them the verbiage is there and just sitting down you can acquire those dollars easily. [0:33:41.8]

But the program we implemented doesn’t cost a lot of money. All we took was an existing bus that our bus department… It was well put together in terms of maintenance and everything else and I just simply said, “May I have one of the buses that you don’t use on regular routes, and can we put some child car seats in there?” And I got some of the local businesses to help me fund those and that took care of that. That was our biggest expense. Now the child care, we get state funding to do our life skilled support program. Not very much but that pays enough for the child care and then I have some state comp. money that comes from the state. And the other thing that people need to realize is as long as the young girls are in school, they’re generating foundation money. Every day that they come, we get that attendance money. So if I calculate my girls and say okay, they’re here every day. That’s this much money, that’s an investment and so the child care we’re able to get. We also talk to the child care facilities, and we visit with them, and they gave us a break on it as well. So there was a lot of negotiating and partnering. [0:34:57.3]

Now some people might say well gee why didn’t you ask the girls to seek some help? Well many of the girls didn’t want to and the stipulation was that in order for them to receive any assistance from the state, they had to name the father. And many of the girls didn’t want to do that. And one of the things that we did in our program is always use the following motto; any obstacle that’s out there will not be an obstacle. So whatever the girl said, “Well I don’t want to do such and such” we didn’t press them. We just said, “Okay, let’s go on and do this.” So the funding was out there. I’m a good grant writer so this past year I acquired over three million dollars so it’s not a difficult thing for me to do. [0:35:43.1]

By the way the listeners that are out there, it’s not difficult for them to do that either. All you’ve got to do is go to edu.gov and you’ll see all the funding that’s available and then you pick and choose. It doesn’t make any difference if you need $50,000.00, $100,000.00, whatever, sit down and look at it, and you’ll be able to get that. So that’s…

LARA KAUFMANN: That’s encouraging.

MARY JANE GARZA: Well it is. It’s really not difficult. A lot of people ask me to speak on that. Every week I generate minimum of $50,000.00 to $100,000.00. And part of that also comes as once you’ve established yourself that you use the money wisely, you turn in every report, sometimes I’ll just get an e-mail that says would you like such and such, fill out the following and I do it. So it’s just a matter of getting out there, and doing it, and believing in the cause, and always saying to yourself okay what do I do, what do we need to do, and listening to the students because they will tell you what they need, and then we just proceed forth. [0:36:43.6]

LARA KAUFMANN: That’s great. And Fanny can you tell us about your experience?

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: You know it’s unique in the sense of how we fund the programs. We don’t receive any government dollars to implement our program. We have many corporate partners that invest in youth leadership development and see the value in our program. And we also go to the communities that we service and do fund raisers and get donations from stakeholders and community leaders that see the benefits of the program. And so in that sense it’s a different approach that we’re taking on fund raising to implement the youth leadership program. [0:37:24.5]

LARA KAUFMANN: I also have a question about state departments of education in your respective states, Texas and California. Have they been involved at all with the planning and implementation of these programs, and what role have they played if any?

MARY JANE GARZA: In our particular program basically not directly. No. And the role they play is one of the things that our state does is monitor, of course, our graduation rate. Well they’ve seen it go from 50 some odd to 70 now to 90 so I’m guessing a call that says red flags go up. Red flags go up when you’re not doing well, red flags go up because they go how can this be turned around. So we’ve begun to talk about that. Now the involvement is there because they want to know what needs to be done. And they get very interested when I say it really doesn’t cost money in terms of extra. It takes time to sit down, and figure out the processes, and the systems because they’ve asked me to present like eight or nine times, and one of the things I tell the state is it’s not a cook book recipe. I can’t tell them do step one, do step two, do step three. What it is, it’s a process. It’s an analysis of what you have, and then saying to yourself where do we want to go, and then saying to yourself how do we look at every student? And then put the team members together that really have a commitment. [0:38:49.1]

So how is the state involved, well now their involved because they see how the change has taken place, and they want to know how can they replicate this in other parts of the state that are having the difficulty of graduating their co-harts within the four year period especially the Hispanic population and the African American. And then especially those students who are pregnant because basically in our area, our zip code, had the highest pregnancy rate of any zip code in the state of Texas. And now it’s down to almost zilch. So that’s something else they’re looking at. So we’re receiving some very positive attention because of the efforts that our high school has implemented. [0:39:36.7]

LARA KAUFMANN: One of our listeners from another region in Arizona has been asking that they work with a lot of pregnant and parenting Latina teens and they provide child care and parenting programs that help support them so they can stay in school and graduate. And they said unexpectedly this year there are a number of Latina students becoming pregnant with their second child and they are curious as to why this is occurring because they do receive sex education. And I will say briefly based on our limited research, it may not be just sex education that these girls need a sense of hope for the future. And if they have strong educational aspirations, if they have strong beliefs that they’ll be able to achieve their goals and succeed, then they will, I think based on the girls we spoke to, be more cautious and take steps to prevent early pregnancy. And so it’s not just about knowing how, although I think clearly sex education’s important, having access to good complete comprehensive information is important, and certainly access to contraception as well. But beyond that they have to believe that there’s something else that they’re going to delay parenting for. That’s my thought. Do any of you have something to add on that? [0:41:02.7]

MARY JANE GARZA: You hit the nail on the head. That’s exactly what our girls are saying. Because now when we see the three and when see some of our others, we keep that support group. We stay in touch with our girls who are pregnant and have delivered until they graduate; until they go on to higher education. Well it’s interesting the talked last year, they themselves as we were talking and I was listening to the last group we were talking about what was their high school experience like and what would they like to do different, every one of the girls that was sitting there said that they would delay having a child. They themselves saw the benefit of it. And it’s interesting to hear that. I said to them, “Now why would you do that?” And they looked at me and said, “This is very hard work, and now I’ve got a big responsibility not only to take care of myself, but now I’ve got to take care of my daughter.” “And I’m going to go on, but if I had waited to have my daughter at a later time, I would be able to take care of myself at this point and be better prepared.” I wanted to just cry at that point to hear that coming out of a student, and I thought you know we are beginning to make a difference. And every one of the girls that was sitting there was just nodding their head in agreement. [0:42:28.1]

LARA KAUFMANN: And research does show that the girls who don’t drop out after having a first child are far more likely to drop out once they have a second so it is really important to prevent that subsequent pregnancy if at all possible. We have gotten another question about students of other races and ethnicities and whether this is a problem for them too and whether the center will be conducting research about barriers to graduation for other groups of girls of color. And the answer to that is yes it is a problem for other groups. The drop out rate for African American girls is slightly higher than that for Latinas, it’s 43 percent. The drop out rate for Native American girls is the highest of all the racial ethnic subgroups of girls at 49 percent. And the drop out rates for white girls and for Asian girls are slightly lower, 22 percent and 19 percent respectively; significantly lower and still too high of course. We’re definitely interested in replicating this kind of research project for other groups of girls. We hope to find the resources to do so but in the meantime I just want to point out that the recommendations we make in this report if implemented would benefit not only Latinas but other students of color as well including African American girls and other girls of color. [0:44:01.8]

So we’ve done quite a bit of work to address the drop out crisis for girls generally and for pregnant and parenting students in particular, many of whom are girls of color. And we’ll continue to advocate, of course, for efforts to improve all educational opportunities and outcomes for all students. And we are looking forward to working together with MALDEF specifically on the crisis for Latinas.

Turning to another question, we got a question about local and community groups in the involvement of local and community groups in your programs. Is there a role for them to play?

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: Oh absolutely. This is Fanny. When the question was asked about resources and how do we find the funding, I think one of the elements that I wanted to add is the importance of partnership with other organizations. I think that not only do they provide guidance and support as far as understanding the local community and the landscape but also bringing resources. So there might be areas that HOPE is an organization and not the expert on teen pregnancy prevention but who is out there that’s doing great work that we can partner with? So partnerships from our perspective are essential and they’re a big part of the success of the program. [0:45:25.9]

MARY JANE GARZA: In our particular group program, this is Mary Jane, communities and schools have social workers within our schools. And basically at the high school we have one that’s been with us for the past three years and has been working with our young ladies with our teen pregnancy program. Another big supporter of us that has really come on board since last year and this year is the City of Corpus Christi Parks and Recreation, and they’ve helped a great deal. And the City of Corpus Christi also provides mentoringship for our high school students. So they’re able to mentor with city employees and that’s helped us a great deal. So these partnerships within our community definitely provide an added benefit, and it helps our students not only see positive role models in different aspects of government work in cities, but also the fact that they feel important that they’re contributing as well. So partnerships are important. [0:46:30.0]

LARA KAUFMANN: Can anyone speak to the issue of whether having Latina or Latina professionals on the school staff serves as an important factor in improving Latina grad rates or success? I guess that goes to the issue of role models really.

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: Oh, absolutely. I think the way our program is set up, this is Fanny, like I mentioned before one of the agreements with the schools when we sign our memorandum of understanding is that they will identify school staff members that not only will chaperone the girls through the program but would also serve as an advisor. It’s been the case not everyone at the school selects a Latina but they do happen to be a strong person that the young ladies look up to. So the students go to this person for advice, for personal advice, for academic advice, for letters of recommendation, and they really create a strong bond with the staff members. So it’s critical throughout probably our lives ourselves we can probably identify key people that encouraged us to stay in school and go on to college. So those relationships are key to their success. [0:47:48.1]

MARY JANE GARZA: And I concur 100 percent. And that the role model being of the same ethnicity does it have a positive influence, and yes, I believe it does. I’m bilingual, I speak Spanish very well and it’s interesting when I’ll hear the young ladies speaking Spanish that I’ll go up and I’ll start speaking and then oh do to ma’am. Yes, and then we begin. There’s a new relationship that evolves and develops. So it definitely does help. It’s how you relate ethnically to the students and that you’re able to tell whether it’s the food, or the beliefs, or the holidays that you celebrate because it’s one thing to read about them. It’s a different thing to practice them. And it’s not that people of other ethnicities cannot identify with them but it just makes it a little easier sometimes. [0:48:36.9]

LARA KAUFMANN: What could schools do especially schools with large Latino populations like yours to bring that cultural competence piece into the curriculum to include things about Latina heritage and things to make students feel more at home at school? We had some girls tell us things like one girl was suspended for speaking Spanish in school. There was another school where girls mentioned that they did a lot of things for African American history month but not a lot for Latino history month and so they felt really, even though they were a substantial part of the school population, they did not feel as welcome. Any thoughts about that? [0:49:22.7]

MARY JANE GARZA: Well you know it’s interesting and if you were to describe our district and when I give a speech I tell them, we’re a minority, minority, Hispanic 84 percent, and then you have African American 14, and then you have Asian and economically disadvantaged. So when you look at all of those factors and we talk about them, then you sort of have to say to yourself okay, how do we take this and make the best of this? And part of that is we celebrate the (inaudible at 0:49:55.5) but we do more than that. An example, our Supreme Court Justice that was just nominated, we talk about that she’s female, we talk about the ethnicity, we celebrate that. So it’s in terms of not only looking at celebrating the month long of Hispanic heritage of African American but celebrating every day the accomplishments that occur. And we make that part of what we do in our school day. So students become very cognizant of oh, okay. And some people want to say let’s look at people as people. That’s true. But let’s look at the different ethnicities group in terms of what they contribute and make it a celebration and not just in terms of one month but throughout the year and at Thanksgiving, and Christmas, different ways. So you can build that into your curriculum very easily. [0:50:53.5]

LARA KAUFMANN: That’s very helpful. We are getting a lot of questions about the differences in girls from different countries of origin and also different geographic regions of the United States. In our survey we did talk to girls mostly girls of Mexican decent, but we did have a substantial number of Caribbean and Central American decent, and some girls of South American origin. But we did not see a whole lot of differences in the responses we got. We also didn’t have a representative sample, so I’m not going to claim that that says anything about the potential differences. So do you have any thoughts about that and whether the programs that you all have implemented would be transferable to other countries of origin but also other geographic regions? [0:51:50.4]

MARY JANE GARZA: Oh yeah. I know in our particular case, any student that is tardy to school doesn’t come to school, when you look at them you don’t look in terms of Hispanic, or African American, or whatever. You look in terms of a student. And so the model that we have is transferable in any part of the United States because it’s not a program it’s a process, it’s a system. It’s a way of looking at what are we currently doing and that’s what I start off with. Tell me what you’re currently doing, tell me who’s doing it, and how you’re doing it. Then we begin to discover wait a minute, those are your missing pieces. [0:52:28.7]

LARA KAUFMANN: Fanny, for you do you work with girls involved in the juvenile justice system at all or on probation?

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: No, we don’t directly work the juvenile justice system.

LARA KAUFMANN: Okay. And maybe you can describe how the girls are selected for your program.

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: The girls are selected through our community partners and those are predominantly high schools throughout the state. The only requirements that we establish is that the girls have to be potentially the first generation college student in their family to go to college, that they qualify for the federal lunch program, and that they have a C average to be in the program. So we leave it to our partner to decide how they’re going to do the selection. Some of the partners go and speak to the school counselors and they put their recommendations or some other partners do essays and they have kind of a contest to see what girl gets accepted to the program. So we just have that minimum criteria to complete. [0:53:33.3]

LARA KAUFMANN: So you’re targeting the girls in the middle. The ones who are not completely failing but also aren’t excelling. And you said 98 percent are graduating?

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: Ninety-eight percent are graduating.

LARA KAUFMANN: And that’s 98 percent of the 28 girls in the smaller sub leadership program or in the over 300 students?

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: Yeah, in the smaller leadership group. And we have close to 150 graduates from the program already.

LARA KAUFMANN: Okay. And then the 300 students across California that you’re reaching with your other program, what is the graduation rate or if you define success differently for those students maybe that would be good to address as well? [0:54:16.4]

FANNY ARROYO OLIVEIRA: For those students they are primarily serviced through our conferences so they attend our workshops and we measure the feedback that they give us right after they do the workshops. So they do the find interesting the approach that we take on teen pregnancy prevention and more as a conversation about what their peers are doing and what kind of message they can give to them about delaying pregnancy. And we also see them in Sacramento when they go to the state capitol and learn about what are those key elements that Latinas look for, for success and graduating high school. So we don’t do the same measurements as we do for the targeted program, the group of 28 that we do annually, but we primarily service them through our conferences. [0:55:06.6]

LARA KAUFMANN: We got a question here about what can be done to ensure the collaboration of Latino organizations and women’s organizations moving forward. And I will say in response to that, and Veronica you’re welcome to comment as well, we are definitely working together on the federal level moving forward. I think one thing we want people to understand is that these are not just Latina issues or women’s issues; they’re civil rights issues and educational opportunity issues for both. And Latinas and other girls of color experience discrimination as members of their racial ethnic group and also as women. And when we’re talking about the dropout crisis, it’s not a zero sum game. We can and we should be working together to improve opportunities and improve success for all students of color, not just boys or girls. But I do think it’s important for our communities to work together in terms of organizations dedicated to Latina issues and organizations dedicated to women’s issues because there is really quite a bit of overlap especially for girls of color. Do you have anything to add to that Veronica? [0:56:16.6]

VERONICA RIVERA: Yes, just that collaboration is definitely key and the sharing of information. What happens is sometimes if you’re finding it maybe odd that the National Women’s Law Center and MALDEG are partnering together, it shouldn’t be odd. It’s that we share information, and we look for ways that we can collaborate with each other on specific issues that are important to our organization. So once you establish that, then that helps just, again, moving forward with the civil rights issues and issues that affect children of color that we are all working together on in our own different ways. [0:57:06.1]

LARA KAUFMANN: I want to address another question quickly about next steps toward implementing the recommendations of our report. I think it’s really important that the listeners know that we need your help in our efforts. One is that we are trying to educate the public about the specific barriers faced by Latinas and what can be done to rectify the situation. And we encourage you to share the report with your state and local government officials, with school districts and boards of education, even with particular schools to let them know what some of the barriers in particular are, and what our recommendations are, and ways that they can help Latinas overcome those barriers. Also you can let us know if you hear of any violations of civil rights based on sex, based on ethnicity, based on status as a pregnant and parenting student, or status as an English language learner. It’s important for us to know what’s going on out there so that we can then continue to encourage as we’ve been doing the Department of Education here in Washington to investigate any complaints, to do compliance reviews to make sure that our civil rights laws are being complied with, and that students aren’t being discriminated against, and being pushed out of school. And there’s also legislation in the pipeline, particularly the reauthorization of no child left behind, that we will be working on. This is legislation that addresses the needs of all at risk students, and particularly low income students and students of color, and you can play a role in supporting our efforts in that regard, and building support on the state and local level for the initiatives that we are advocating for. So I encourage you to stay in touch with us on that. [0:58:55.1]

And I think we have to wrap up now, but I want to give you a couple of resources to look at for more information. You can look at the resources on our website at www.nwlc.org and if you go to nwlc.org/listening, you can get directly to our report which you can download as well as fax sheets and other resources. If you want to receive updates and alerts from the National Women’s Law Center, you can sign up for that at our website as well. And if you have questions or concerns, or as I said, if you think you know of any instances of discrimination or you want to tell us about another promising program we haven’t heard of yet, and there are many out there I’m sure, you can send us an e-mail at action@nwlc.org. I want to thank all of our speakers today and thanks to all of our listeners for the great questions. We are going to be sending out a recording and a transcript from this call to everyone who’s registered so stay tuned for that. And I want to thank all of you for participating and both MALDEF and the National Women’s Law Center will continue to work together to address these issues, as I said, and we look forward to being in touch. So with that, that will conclude our call for today and, again, thank you to everyone, and we hope you enjoyed it. Thank you. [1:00:21.5]

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