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When Carolyn Zermeno, at the age of 16, gave birth to her baby, she felt like her future aspirations had crumbled beneath her feet. Frightened and confused, she sought consolation from her mother. “I would tell my mom that I was scared and didn’t know what to do because I had a child so young, but I wanted to continue with school,” Zermeno recalls.

Finishing high school seemed like a daunting, if not impossible, task as she would have to balance the myriad responsibilities of raising a child with several years of academic demands looming ahead of her. But with the help of a family member who had struggled with a similar dilemma, Zermeno, now 17, discovered a possible solution: the George I. Sanchez Charter High School, in her hometown of Houston, Texas, which provides the services she needed both to care for her child and to concentrate on her studies, even earning college credit before graduation.

“[My parents] are proud of me for continuing on,” Zermeno says. “They tell me to just keep going. Really, they’ve become more interested.”

A Mutual Goal
The George I. Sanchez Charter High School is operated by the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans (AAMA), a National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Affiliate. The school is one of nearly 100 Latino-serving charter and alternative schools throughout the country in the NCLR Affiliate Network. It is also one of only 12 schools in the United States selected to participate in NCLR’s educational test program, the Early College High School Demonstration Project (ECP).

ECP is an outgrowth of NCLR’s highly successful Charter School Development Initiative, a program partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation which seeks to expand educational opportunities for Latino students and increase high school and college graduation rates through the creation and operation of charter schools.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanics make up 18% of the nation’s elementary and high school students. However, Latinos have a disproportionately high dropout rate compared to other groups of students. Furthermore, less than a quarter of Latino students ages 18 through 24 are enrolled in postsecondary degree-granting institutions, and Hispanics represent only 5% of graduate students.

ECP schools address both of those challenges by closing the gap. Students in ECP schools have the opportunity to earn college credits while simultaneously fulfilling the requirements for a high school diploma. Students earn a two-year associate’s degree, or complete two full academic years of credit toward a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree, with the opportunity to accumulate up to 60 college credits, which are then transferable to partnering community colleges and other participating higher-education schools. By aligning curricula with local community colleges and state universities, these schools are breaking the molds that have traditionally separated high schools from colleges, thereby helping high schools better understand how to prepare students for college as well as allowing students greater access to college credit and the valuable experience needed to gain a postsecondary education.

“We hope that this project will encourage people to rethink the barriers between high school and college,” says Marie Groarke, Senior Policy Officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “If so, that would ultimately allow more students to graduate from high school with college credit, allowing young people to understand what college is like and understand how they might be able to succeed in college with what they learned in high school.”

The Language of Progress
As Zermeno and many other Latino students once at risk of dropping out have experienced, ECP schools go beyond solely offering academic opportunities. “We want the community involved in helping the student 100%, not just academically. This is the next step of education. School cannot end at four o’clock,” says Jeff Flores, Director of School Operations, Planning, and Assessment, based in NCLR’s San Antonio office. These schools become the nexus of the community’s social life and culture, and they strive to create an environment where families are encouraged to be actively involved in their children’s education.

A combination of factors often create barriers that discourage parents from participating in the school system, such as unfamiliarity with the processes of the U.S. public school system, limited English skills,, and few, if any, family members possessing anything beyond a partial high school education,. Rather than dodging these issues, ECP has targeted this group in an effort to redress decades of academic neglect.

Nationally, on average, 25% of the ECP students come from non-English-speaking homes, with the high end being 70% at one Los Angeles school. Upon entrance, many students are illiterate in both English and Spanish. At the George I. Sanchez Charter High School, 40% of the student body has limited proficiency in English; 98% are Hispanic; 63% qualify for free or reduced lunch; and roughly 80% are classified by the state as “at risk,” a term which includes adjudicated youth and teen mothers.

These daunting figures can only be addressed by engaging the entire community in the educational system, Flores says. “Part of building community relationships is making sure that there is relevance in education,” he adds. “It is very relevant to the students if their education respects their culture, respects the language of the community and of their parents. It is not uncommon to have a parent-teacher conference at these schools conducted in Spanish.”

New Path to Success
Such efforts are making headway as ECP starts to prove that these students, often thought to be beyond help, are showing their ability to succeed academically when given the proper attention and resources.

Based strictly on a breakdown of the student body, the California Academy for Liberal Sciences Early College High School (CALS) would traditionally be thought of as a scholastic wasteland beyond repair. The CALS student body is 93% Latino. Roughly 91% of the students are economically disadvantaged, and 87% entered formal schooling speaking a language other than English. In addition, 79% will be the first generation in their family to attend college. However, CALS has proven to be one of the schools with some of the most promising test scores and has demonstrated rapid progress. CALS earned a ranking in the 10th percentile of California public schools, the highest ranking available in that state—a particularly impressive achievement in Los Angeles, where approximately 50% of Latino youth do not complete high school.

According to Luis Genao, Senior Director of the Early College Project, CALS has experienced rapid and promising academic success among its students largely through its efforts to “catch up” students who are below their grade level. CALS is a unique example in which this method has been particularly successful because roughly 85% of its incoming freshman class has had intensive preparatory schooling at CALS Middle School, where a rigorous curriculum and emphasis on strengthening students’ weak subject areas and language proficiency are paramount.

“The whole notion is that we ‘plan backwards,’” Genao says. “In other words, if in the sixth grade your students are at the third-grade level, the school community has to develop a plan to bridge the gap, to provide the educational and social structures and supports that will allow students to achieve at the highest level, or at least the college level, by the time they leave high school. So, for most of our schools, whether they start in the ninth grade or in the sixth grade, the first two years are really ones of acceleration and of acculturation.” This usually means an extended school day, during which students’ strengths and weaknesses are identified. Many students come from large or failing schools, with low academic skills and with habits that are not conducive to being a productive learner.

“Our community schools engage students in small classroom settings, with literature that is rich and made relevant by students. Fundamentally, we need to create a new road with and for our students,” Genao says. “If they are coming in at the sixth grade with third-grade skills, we need to engage them with at least a sixth-grade curriculum in a fashion that they will comprehend and own, which will help them to accelerate. … The level of support and the structures that are needed to accomplish this are not commonly found in most high schools.”

More Than Just a Home Room
Providing the support and structure that disadvantaged kids need is precisely what ECP is attempting to standardize in Latino-serving charter schools. “Education is not one-size-fits-all,” says Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO. “NCLR is committed to the idea that all children can learn when the proper resources and guidance are available and when parents and local communities are engaged in the process.” By providing a variety of services not typically found in public schools, ranging from rehab centers, daycare for children of students, health staff, English as a Second Language courses, and even homeless shelters for enrolled students, these institutions aim to remove most obstacles that keep students out of the classroom.

According to Angelina Rodriguez, a 16-year-old student entering her sophomore year at George I. Sanchez Charter High School, many students have relied on the services provided on campus to continue attending school regularly. “I know a lot of people who have had to take advantage of the AAMA House and stay there as long as two days to a few months,” says Rodriguez, speaking of the on-campus center where daycare services, housing for homeless students, and other social services are provided.

Now, as Rodriguez and Zermeno reflect on their time spent in two very different types of high schools—mainstream public and charter—their preference is clear. With ECP, they have found a school environment unlike any they had experienced elsewhere, providing them with the opportunity to take college-level courses while addressing their unique needs through smaller class sizes, personalized attention, and a feeling of camaraderie between students and teachers. These aspects of Early College High Schools are transforming school from a place to dread into a place of hope for those struggling students often overlooked and underserved.

“They’re really helping me out, having a child so young,” says Zermeno, who plans to attend college to become a dentist. “And it has made my parents really proud of me that I’m still going to school, and especially that I’m earning college credit. Now I’ve really been looking forward to continuing with life. Just because I had a child doesn’t mean it’s the end for me.”

One Student’s Story
Articulate and spunky, Angelina Rodriguez comes across as an intelligent, confident young woman. It is surprising then to learn that, despite being only 16, she was headed down a track that might have prevented her from graduating from high school. “I was getting into trouble at my other school and hanging out with the wrong crowd,” she says. “The disciplinary problems that I used to have were not really for behavior. It was my attendance.”

Now entering her sophomore year at George I. Sanchez Charter High School, in Houston, Texas, this issue appears to have resolved for Rodriguez. She has a newfound appreciation for school, her teachers, and the opportunities that dual-credit courses provide her. “I think that getting along now with my teachers has improved [my attendance problem],” Rodriguez says. “I don’t really mind going to school now. I go to school and [I think], ‘Oh! I’m going to see Ms. Peña,’ or, ‘Hey! I’m going to go see Mrs. Sharon.’”
Rodriguez says that she has found a community at her new school which far exceeds that of her old schools. “The bonding and the communication between the teachers and us, between the counselors and us, and the teachers amongst themselves is friendlier,” she says. “We can joke around with each other. It’s something that I never saw at any of the public schools that I went to, and it is something that I really like about this one.”

The size of the school plays a part in the community atmosphere. “Because we are smaller than the big public schools, we are able to get to know everybody. Even if you don’t have a certain teacher, they will still know your name. They are there to offer help in any way,” Rodriguez says.

Thanks to the school’s focus on personal relationships among staff and students, Rodriguez is up to the challenge of the rigorous, goal-driven curriculum.

Rodriguez says, “This is all information that anyone can take in, depending on the amount of effort you’re willing to put into it. And that’s the challenging part about it. The amount of effort you put into something is the amount of positive results you will receive from it. That’s really what I believe. If I want to pass these classes, am I willing to sacrifice going out to get it done? Hey, to me, it’s worth it, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

The Impact
NCLR recognizes that there is a direct link between high school dropout rates and low college attendance rates and believes that all students, despite challenging circumstances, have college potential. To meet these challenges, they and their families must be introduced to a college path early in education. The organization supports Early College High Schools as a model that will simultaneously decrease dropout rates, increase college attendance, and offer opportunities for students who are otherwise overlooked and underserved.


Take Action
For more information about the Early College High School Demonstration Project, visit http://www.nclr.org.