The following was written by Educational Options Council member Kathleen Sutphen, principal of Chana Continuation High School in the Placer Union High School District, in response to the recent report, “Solving California’s Dropout Crisis” by the California Dropout Research Project.
Continuation high schools in California address the academic needs of extremely at-risk students. It is easy to point a finger at continuation schools and other alternative school campuses, but a quick analysis of the attributes that commonly define a continuation high school student body must be examined to obtain a true picture of the way in which students are referred to these types of schools and the challenges that these students and their teachers face as they all work hard toward the goal of graduation.
Continuation students most commonly enroll as an outcome of being referred from their comprehensive high school where they are failing their classes. As such, most of our students, and the majority of continuation high school students statewide, have significant academic challenges and a pattern of failure at their previous school of enrollment. These students are already defined as likely high school dropouts before they enroll at a continuation campus. It is for that exact reason, the likelihood of being a high school dropout, that these students are referred for enrollment.
Continuation schools are stopgap educational institutions specifically designed to address the academic needs of California’s most at-risk students and those most likely to drop out of high school. In addition to academic literacy issues, many continuation students have experienced a series of behavioral issues and/or poor attendance at their previous schools of attendance.
Many of these students engage in high-risk behaviors, such as cigarette use, drug and/or alcohol use, and/or sexual activity. Some continuation students are already parenting or are pregnant for the first or even second or third time. The majority of Chana’s students are also socio-economically deprived, as are most continuation high school students throughout the state of California.
At present, 67 percent of Chana’s students qualify for free and reduced lunch because their families are living at or below the federal poverty level. A stark contract can be made between the economic instability of many of our students’ households and that of the average household in Placer County where our school is located. Placer County’s measured poverty rate is 5.5 percent per a 2005 Placer County economic report based on federal census data.
Many continuation high school students have learning difficulties. Some of these students are identified in need of special education services, others are not identified as such, but their reading and math deficiencies are evident upon enrollment. Continuation schools work hard to remediate these learning difficulties so that our students can pass both the English and math sections of the California High School Exit Exam.
As a result of the efforts at Chana High School, we have a graduation rate of 85 percent. This is 20 percent higher than the state average of approximately 67 percent. However, it must be noted that our school’s enrollment is 87 percent Caucasian. Only 4.7 percent of our students are Hispanic and the remaining 8.3 percent are of a variety of ethnicities.
Despite our students’ demographic similarities, the Chana staff still faces a significant challenge. The challenges faced by an inner-city continuation campus or a campus with a more diverse student body is indescribable. While Chana has only 12 students this year that do not speak English, many schools such as ours have several hundred students that do not speak English and many diverse ethnic subgroups with varying values, affiliations and unique challenges.
Although Chana has a demographically similar student body, the school still has a student transient rate of approximately 40 percent per year. This means that 40 percent of our student body in any school year remains on the campus for fewer than 90 days of enrollment.
It goes without saying that Chana and other continuation high school campuses must make monumental efforts to consistently and effectively address the diverse academic needs of an ever-changing student body. A significant number of our students are homeless, living in group homes, or are in foster care. These students lack the stability of a two-parent or even a one-parent household. They also lack the support of close family and relatives.
The description of our student body attributes is long. The above description can be applied to any continuation high school campus; however, the described attributes are likely to be much more significant than they are at Chana High School. Because we have a more stable student body than most continuation campuses we are able to have a higher graduation rate.
What California residents need to understand is that continuation schools and other alternative education campuses meet the needs of students that failed at their comprehensive campuses. If alternative education high school campuses are closed in California the dropout rate will increase significantly.
It is my belief that the news on this topic is the number and percentage of students that do earn their diplomas from an alternative high school campus. Each diploma earned is a significant achievement, one that is gained through struggle and commitment on the part of students and teachers alike. These accomplishments need to be celebrated and honored.