Researcher Robert Balfanz says by ninth grade, he can identify 75% of the kids who will drop out from high school. That’s when a team of nonprofits rushes in to help
(San Antonio, Texas) — First period was just about to start, and Angel Mendoza was already asleep at his desk.
He’s often tired at school after working late-night shifts in the kitchen at Alamo Pizza, but he needs the money and the busy schedule keeps him out of trouble.
“Honestly, sometimes I don’t even do my homework,” said the 18-year-old senior at Luther Burbank High School. “I just come to school and do my homework in class or something, or if I’m off I’ll do my homework.”
Plopped at the intersection of two freeways on the city’s south side, Burbank is surrounded by small, single-family homes with faded paint and yards with brown grass and overgrown trees. Nobody here lives too far away from their aunts or uncles, brothers or cousins. Breakfast tacos from a hole-in-the-wall cafe down the street are a morning staple.
When there was talk about shuttering the school a few years back because of declining enrollment, everybody rallied together to save the place. But the area does have a reputation for being unsafe. In November, Burbank High School — a hodgepodge of new and old buildings surrounding a quaint courtyard — went into lockdown after a bullet zipped through a classroom window.
[For more of this story, written by Mark Keierleber, go to https://www.the74million.org/a...em-to-graduation-day]
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