Spanish Becomes a Prominent language at high Schools

Spanish population and the language grew on a significant way over the past years and the fact that the percentage of Hispanics dropping school has decreased it show that this new generation is prepared for the challenges of life.

The department of education published that from the year 2000 to 2015 the dropout rate of Hispanics students decreased from 27.8 percent to 9.2 percent in addition most of the english language learners have their second language being Spanish representing 77,1 percent.

This is a significant number considering that 9.4 percent of students or 4.6 million students are English second language learners but by knowing this fact how do schools react to this, do they help their new students or they just leave it to the ESOL teachers?

For the case of our school we saw that it is very diverse and indeed the county decided to open lines for people that speak chinese, spanish vietnamese and other languages in that way they will be informed about how their child is progressing and to know about school events. Thanks to the administration of Principal Thomas and his knowledge in spanish, he was able to promote the language and help parents that are not fluent with the language by getting translators for them on events such as Senior night and having events in spanish only. In addition he gives the announcements in spanish to help students understand what is currently happening at the school.

We decided to contact other high schools to see if they follow a similar program but only one responded us back ,Ann Bonitatibus, the Principal from Thomas Jefferson High School, she commented us that the school does not emphasize or incentivise spanish or other language and she also told us that  their hispanic population is small but she strongly believes that world language study is an important part of becoming a global citizen.

In order for High Schools to have more programs to help hispanics it will depend on the area and the percentage of the hispanic population for example based on the data provided by edexelencia.org California has 51% of students in the K-12 program but it also tells us that from 36% of adults only 16% had gotten a degree. In other areas such as New Mexico, the numbers are higher on the k-12 students by being 58% and the percentage of students having a degree is 19% out of 36%.

The number of students coming from different countries are growing and by looking at the data the real problem is not the programs but preparing them for their life after high school and inspiring them to go to a higher education.