News CLACS hopes to 'step' up Hispanic enrollment
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 University entomologist Jorge M. Gonzalez, a Venezuela native, said the Hispanic dropout rate is a result of students' need to work to help their families financially. |
October 10, 2002
The Red and Black
The University community needs to encourage local Hispanic students to stay enrolled in high school and attend college, a speaker at a presentation for Hispanic Heritage month said.
In a lecture titled "Steps to College: An Intensive Academic Program for Latino Students," Jackie Saindon, an instructor for the American Language Program at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education, said the number of Hispanic students in the Clarke County School System has been on the rise since 1990.
Based on a report by the Non-Native Hispanic Task Force, she cited an increase from 1.4 percent in 1990 to 9.6 percent in 2000.
Spanish-speaking students now comprise 11.8 percent of the population and 22.9 percent in pre-kindergarten and elementary grades, she said.
"We have lost the students by (the 11th grade)," said Saindon, who also is vice president of the Clarke County School Board. "They are not staying to take the high school graduation test."
In addition, not enough Hispanic students take the SAT to get into college. Only seven Hispanic students took the SAT in the Clarke County School System during the 2000-2001 academic year.
Most Hispanic students are working after dropping out of high school, said Saindon's colleague Kelly Harper, migrant education specialist for the Clarke County School System.
"Some of them don't think they will ever go to college," she said. "It's not a part of their aspirations. Part of that is the money—they can't afford it."
Jorge Gonzalez, a research assistant in the Department of Entomology and a native of Venezuela, said many of the students drop out because their families do not consider education a priority.
Sending money home to family in their native country is a higher priority. He said any program to help students also must educate parents.
Saindon also said if a student is not a legal resident, he or she is not eligible for the hope scholarship.
Community colleges waive out-of-state tuition with tuition waivers, which the University is more likely to offer to athletes, she said.
"Each school in the University System is given an allocation of a certain amount of spots to waive tuition," Saindon said.
"The University and state has the responsibility to help these students graduate and get to college," she said.