But before you crack open the champagne, you should know that only a small fraction of those students can do high school-level math. Those graduates may struggle if they try to go to college, qualify for military service or pursue other technical training. 

How big is this problem? And how does it vary across the country? In a recent project for , I set out to quantify the disparity between a state’s high school graduation and math proficiency rates. We dubbed this the .

Because states define high school math proficiency differently, the precise gaps are not perfectly comparable across states. But in many places, the disparities are shockingly large. In California, for example, 86% of high school students are graduating within four years, yet just 30% of 11^th graders pass the state math test. Florida reports a 90% graduation rate while 44% of students reached only level 3 out of 5 on end-of-course exams in algebra and geometry. The state warns that students performing at this level “may need additional support for the next grade/course.”

These are not isolated examples. Across the country, the percentage of high schoolers who earn diplomas far exceeds the percentage who can demonstrate mastery in math, often by 30, 40 or even 50 percentage points.

We focused on math for a few reasons. One is that the gaps tend to be larger in math than they are in reading. For example, 51% of Minnesota’s 10^th graders were proficient in reading, compared with 35% in math.

Two, as the collaborative’s director Jim Cowen in a recent Forbes piece, these types of gaps suggest that students are leaving high school unprepared for college coursework, workforce training or apprenticeships that require foundational math skills. At a macro level, lower math skills are likely to lead to lower earnings growth. 

Our analysis also found that states that use some externally validated exams, like the SAT or ACT, tended to have lower math proficiency rates than states that created their own tests. In Nevada, for instance, just 21% of students met ACT’s college-ready benchmark in math, and in New Hampshire, only 31% of 11^th graders met the SAT benchmark  in math.

In contrast, states with their own exams, like New Jersey (59%), Ohio (59%), Iowa (67%) and especially Texas (78%) and Virginia (81%), all reported much higher proficiency rates. Given that students in these states are not doing much better on nationally comparable exams among eighth graders, it’s likely that these reflect lower standards rather than any real superiority in math performance. 

The gaps were also larger for certain subgroups. For example, in Indiana, 25% of students overall met the SAT’s benchmark in math, but the rates were even lower for low-income students (12%), those with disabilities (5%) and English learners (3%).

What can be done about these problems? The answer can’t be to simply lower graduation rates until they match the proficiency levels, or to discard diplomas entirely, even if their signaling value has been degraded over time. For example, analyzed rising graduation rates through 2018 and concluded that the gains were likely the result of students actually learning academic or other social skills. Similarly, it would also be a mistake for states to lower the bar for math proficiency any further than they already have by getting rid of consequences for low performance or by reducing or grading standards.

A better place to start would be to pay more attention to children who struggle with math early in their schooling. If students have trouble with addition and multiplication, they’re likely going to have difficulty with fractions, too. And if they struggle with fractions, they’re likely to have problems in algebra.

Indeed, math proficiency as students advance up the grades. It’s not that they know less, but they fall further and further behind. That demands more urgency and attention to basic skills well before kids get to high school.  

But once students do reach the high school level, states need to strike a better balance in how they use their math exams. In 2002, more than half of all states to earn a diploma. But that led to a watering-down of standards and the creation of workaround pathways. All but six states have rolled those mandates back. 

An alternative model comes from states like Georgia, Virginia, and North and South Carolina, which administer end-of-course exams in algebra, English, science and social studies. The tests are directly aligned to content that students were taught over the course of the school year, and the results count for 10% to 20% of a student’s final course grade. Using tests in this way may be a better approach to making students care about how much they learn without preventing them from earning a diploma.

Most importantly, states need to be honest about what a high school diploma actually means. It should signal that a graduate is ready for what comes next — college, career training, military service or the workforce.

When states continue awarding diplomas while large shares of students remain far below grade level in math, that signal weakens. Families assume a high school diploma reflects readiness. Employers and colleges often do too. But the Graduation Gap data show that assumption is shaky.

In other words, state leaders need to strike a better balance between attainment measures like graduation rates and achievement measures like math scores. To do that, states need to pay more attention to gaps in foundational skills , measure learning more honestly and ensure that the diplomas students receive actually means what the public believes it means.

But even as the department is weakened, some of its work has been sustained by other actors. One of its key functions — helping educators learn about and implement promising improvement strategies — has long been supported and even led by a network of local education organizations.  

When they work together, these organizations — everything from local parent-teacher associations and community-based programs to major philanthropies and research-practice partnerships — turn out to be remarkably good at sharing information about effective K-12 practices, helping school and district leaders craft improvement plans, and rallying support behind these efforts.

And these local organizations don’t just influence what happens to schools locally. As I’ve discovered in , many of these organizations have built connections with each other and with school districts over many years. Working under the radar, these organizations have often created an invisible infrastructure to support change and improvement nationally. 

In studying the history of high school dropout prevention systems, I’ve seen how changes emerged from researchers who studied graduation patterns, school coaches who worked with schools to reduce dropout rates, philanthropic managers who funded these initiatives, and community members who advocated for these changes. What then can be learned from this web of local organizations?

First, local organizations learn a lot from each other. In the early 2000s, organizations in Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City learned that the problem of dropping out can be predicted by students’ ninth grade performance. Researchers from the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University didn’t just publish their results; they spoke to varied audiences from local high school teachers to policymakers at the nation’s capital. They worked with other researchers who have since studied these “early warning indicators” and with other nonprofits that incorporated these indicators in their work with schools. As local researchers, nonprofits, and schools collaborated, changes slowly emerged on how to address the problem of students dropping out. 

Second, local organizations adapt innovations in and foster trust with schools. In the 2010s, when nonprofits were introducing systems to support students’ high school graduation, they did not just transpose a set of recommendations from one school to another. Rather, many of these education nonprofits spent years working with teachers and gaining the trust of schools and districts, constantly adapting strategies to the needs of their partners. Schools appreciated getting their own data, coming up with tailored solutions, and working alongside their outside-school partners. In the process, seemingly “foreign” changes and initiatives become strangely familiar. 

Third, local organizations provide stability and focus in a field so often changing. When school boards change and new superintendents come in, they tend to bring in new initiatives. That can make it harder to maintain existing programs. Their partner organizations can help with focus and stability. For instance, organizations like the UChicago Consortium on School Research and coaches from the university’s Network for College Success have been focused squarely on keeping ninth graders “on track” to graduate. This focus has paid off with high school graduation rates increasingly dramatically in places like Chicago, which experienced a jump from 50% in the early 2000s to 85% graduation in 2024. That success wouldn’t have been possible without the sustained efforts of local research, data, and coaching organizations working with schools over a 20-year period. 

To be clear, local organizations cannot replace the U.S. Education Department. Our nation needs a federal agency to establish financial aid policies, distribute Title I funds, collect national data, support testing innovations, and promote K-12 programs. But it’s important to recognize that the U.S. boasts a strong infrastructure of networked local organizations, and this network has an important role to play in K-12 improvement.

Some caveats are in order. One is that the most affluent schools and districts could develop the strongest relationships to these organizations, which will only exacerbate existing inequalities. It’s not unusual to see a wealthy suburban district, with its well-connected PTA members, attract a number of research partners, while a rural district on the other side of the state struggles to attract any interest at all from researchers, philanthropists, or community groups.

Another is the risk of creating a shadow bureaucracy that challenges existing education leaders. Nonprofits and philanthropists can sometimes push their own initiatives without any community input or with few guardrails for accountability. At the very least, partner organizations should create a steering committee — composed of district officials, union leaders, teachers, parents, students, community members, and other diverse voices — to help foster democratic deliberation about their school improvement plans. But some organizations neglect to seek out such input. 

On balance, though, these organizations have the potential to support positive changes in a decentralized education system. Given today’s political headwinds, it is easy to feel pessimistic about the future. But as the Department of Education faces possible closure, educators should acknowledge and find ways to support local nonprofits, philanthropic foundations, and researchers that shape not just our local schools but also our national education landscape. 

UChicago Consortium on School Research and The 74 both receive financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York and The Joyce Foundation.

As the world settled into pandemic life, students who graduated from high school during the COVID-19 crisis started new chapters of their lives in social and academic seclusion.

Many spent their senior year on Zoom, without homecomings, proms or graduations. They struggled to pass classes and navigate college applications. And they entered college with gaps in study skills and anxiety about social interactions.

They spent their first year of college — typically a time of discovery — in online classes or alone in dorm rooms. Now, some are graduating from college, while others simply gave up.

Across California students grappled with transitioning to college during the pandemic. The challenges were magnified in the Inland Empire, where only about a quarter of all adults hold four-year degrees, compared to 37% statewide.

“I felt really lonely, and it was really, really stressful at that time,” said Maribel Gamez-Reyes, A UC Riverside student from Inglewood.

Holes in their education

Especially for students who are the first in their families to attend college, what should have been their moment of triumph became months of tension. Some questioned whether they even belonged on a college campus, said UC Riverside Dean of Students Christine Mata.

“During lockdown students weren’t able to bond and build connections to the institution, or even access support structures,” she said.

Their academic shortfalls and social isolation took a toll. UC Riverside found that math and writing skills were lower among the students who graduated from high school during the pandemic than for previous high school graduates.

In 2019, before COVID, about 13% of incoming freshmen entered UC Riverside at the lowest math level. In 2020 about 20% of freshmen — the class that lost nearly half its senior year to the pandemic — fell into the lowest math tier.

The 2021 class of high school graduates saw the percentage of low-performing math students tick up even more, to 22%. Those students had spent half their junior year and nearly all their senior year in remote learning.

Likewise, 25% of freshmen entered the university at the lowest writing level in 2019. In 2020 32% fell into the bottom tier. The following year 29% of incoming students started at the lowest writing level.

Math and English levels among incoming freshmen have improved in the past couple of years, university data show.

Grade inflation in high school contributed to those pandemic-era gaps, said Lesley Davidson-Boyd, associate vice president of California State University, San Bernardino. Some high school seniors graduated at the time with stellar grades but below-average test scores in math and English, she said.

“There were a lot of holes in their education,” she said. “There were vital pieces that were missing.”

The federal government sent schools billions in extra pandemic funding, but much of California’s higher education money was not spent on helping students catch up academically.

California received about $34 billion in pandemic aid to education, with about $10 billion of that dedicated to colleges and universities, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Of that, $4 billion was direct aid to students, for help with tuition and other college expenses.

Institutions got $5.3 billion and spent some of that on technology to accommodate remote learning. But much of it went to replacing lost revenue, which administrators said backfilled losses from campus and dormitory closures, and enrollment declines.

Enrollment also took a hit at some California colleges and universities, including many Inland Empire campuses. While enrollment in the University of California system overall has climbed steadily since 2020, it remained flat at UC Riverside since 2020. In the decade before the pandemic, its four-year graduation rate climbed from less than 50% to 67%. But that slid to 60% for the class that started in 2020.

California State Universities’ enrollment numbers dropped during the pandemic, and while admissions finally started rebounding system-wide, it has continued to decline at Cal State San Bernardino from more than 20,000 in 2019 to less than 18,000 in 2024. Four-year graduation rates at Cal State San Bernardino had nearly doubled, from about 13% in 2009, to 25% in 2019, before dropping slightly for the class that started during the first year of the pandemic, in 2020.

Enrollment at the California Community College system fell sharply during the pandemic, but has rebounded throughout the state, including the Inland Empire.

Adriana Banda: Playing catch-up

Pandemic graduates who did go to college often played catch-up in their first year, trying to recover academic skills they lost during remote learning.

For Adriana Banda, pandemic education was a lonely exercise in perseverance. Desert Hot Springs High School offered students the chance to go back in person on limited class schedules, with social distancing precautions, but some of Banda’s family members faced medical risks, so it was a “no-brainer” to stay home and learn remotely, she said.

“I had to learn on my own,” said Banda, now 22. “I honestly didn’t learn much that year. I was just trying to get through high school.”

For years she had looked forward to senior milestones — prom, grad night, a senior sunset gathering and weekends with friends — but she watched them fall away as COVID-19 persisted.

“Having all of my senior experiences taken away from me was really disappointing and discouraging,” she said.

Banda plodded through Zoom classes and graduated high school in 2021. She became the first in her family to go to college when she enrolled at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert campus. 

“Transitioning into college was honestly really hard, especially after coming from a year of remote learning,” she said. “I think during that year I lost the foundational skills I had in school.”

Professors expected high-level work but didn’t always help students struggling with pandemic learning loss, she said.

“The professors didn’t really capture the idea that these students might need more help and support, because of the fact that they weren’t learning in a regular environment for the past year and a half,” Banda said.

The social disruption was even worse: “I’m naturally a shy person, so transitioning from a year full of almost no social communication to being back in the classroom and having to make these relationships and friendships work was really, really hard.”

Getting a campus job at the social services office got her out of her shell. In that role she had to engage with other students but noticed many weren’t receptive.

“People just generally weren’t comfortable having regular conversations anymore,” Banda said. “They would avoid eye contact and get nervous.”

Banda is scheduled to graduate in spring 2026 and plans to pursue a master’s degree and a career as a hospital social worker. The tough lessons of the pandemic will guide her work, she said.

“Seeing how much people genuinely can struggle, and how limited help is, going into social work I’m going to keep that in my head,” she said. “I’m always going to try to the best of my ability to help people.”

Bringing back campus life

Reestablishing campus culture and student life might seem like a lower priority than boosting academic performance in the wake of the pandemic, but university leaders say they’re intertwined. Without connections to classmates and professors, students feel less committed to college.

“Students don’t have the will to stay in school if they don’t feel connected to the campus,” Davidson-Boyd, of Cal State San Bernardino, said. “We saw a rise in dropout rates, and we know that doesn’t just have to do with academics, but connectability to campus as well.”

First year continuation rates for the campus fell, from almost 85% for students who started in 2019 to 78% for those who started in 2020 and 80% for those who started in 2021.

While universities typically encourage students to take a full course load and push through challenging classes, Cal State San Bernardino tried to keep students in school by making it easier for them to drop classes without penalties.

Most students who tried to withdraw from classes but couldn’t do so wound up failing anyway. After two failed classes, many gave up, Davidson-Boyd said: “This was a way to give them an out so they feel like they have more agency over the process.”

Even after pandemic restrictions loosened, campuses continued virtual instruction for some classes and kept dorms at reduced occupancy.

“During lockdown students weren’t able to bond and build connections to the institution, or even access support structures,” Mata said. “They remember being lonely. They were trying to figure out college and it wasn’t what they thought it would be at that time.”

That disengagement hindered attendance and participation during and after the pandemic, Davidson-Boyd said.

“A lot of our students who are failing classes, it’s not that they don’t understand the content,” she said. “They’re just not showing up. Professors are saying that when students are in class they’re not engaged in the same way.”

Cal State San Bernardino reinforced study skills through summer programs for some incoming students, with primers on writing fundamentals and “how-to college math,” she said. And the university introduced a freshman course with tips on identifying their interests, participating in campus events and even asking instructors for help.

Maribel Gamez-Reyes: College application panic

Maribel Gamez-Reyes’ senior year at St. Mary’s Academy, an all-girls Catholic High School in Inglewood, was a marathon of Zoom classes and digital homework.

She struggled with virtual math lessons, and spent so much time online she needed a new glasses prescription for eye strain.

Meanwhile her friendships faded, and lively, campus-wide assemblies she looked forward to were cancelled.

“That was disappointing,” said Gamez-Reyes, now 21. “It was overwhelming, because I realized I wasn’t going to experience all that, and there was this lingering fear because I didn’t know what to expect.”

College applications triggered panic attacks, she said, even with online help from her high school counselor and English teacher.

“I was literally overthinking every decision I was making.”

Gamez-Reyes was excited to be admitted to UC Riverside, but life on campus sparked more stress. The first semester most of her classes were online, which kept her confined to her dorm room and took the joy out of her favorite subject, English. One of her few in-person classes was a math course, but it was held in a large lecture hall and required students to wear masks.

“I had so much anxiety about coming here,” she said. “But even then I tried to push forward because it was my first choice.”

Her mom kept her grounded. “My mom never went to college, and she was very proud of me for going to college … She said, ‘I know you’re scared and you don’t know people, but you have to try.’”

Gamez-Reyes started small. She chose a residence hall known for its social life, with an open layout that encouraged students to hang out in the hallway or lounge.

She eventually found her niche at the college newspaper, the Highlander, first as a contributing writer and then as arts and entertainment editor, where she oversaw coverage of books, fashion, movies and concerts. She made friends in the newsroom and met people while covering live events. She is scheduled to graduate this year and plans to pursue a PhD program in English.

“I’ve found these spaces where I feel really comfortable, and I’ve excelled overall,” Gamez-Reyes said. “Even though I didn’t get to experience some of these exciting moments in high school, I’m experiencing that now.”

Small steps toward socializing

Social avoidance was the norm for pandemic graduates, Mata said. Whether because of fear of infection or the months of isolation, students were wary of parties and preferred simple outdoor events, she said.

“The very basic activities that pre-pandemic students wouldn’t be interested in, like a carnival, when we came back to campus, those were the things students gravitated to,” she said.

Outdoor movie nights also were a hit, offering the right balance of space and social interaction.

“It’s almost like starting small and drawing them out with very basic interactions to break down that social isolation that they developed,” Mata said.

At Cal State San Bernardino fraternity and sorority recruitment declined, along with other clubs and activities, Davidson-Boyd said. Students weren’t just feeling antisocial, she said. They were also scared.

“We instilled some panic that just being around other people could get you sick,” she said. “So I think we’re deprogramming that now.”

Carson Fajardo: Drawing students out of dorm rooms

Early in the pandemic, Carson Fajardo was optimistic that Rancho Cucamonga High School would reopen after a few weeks, in time for an assembly he was planning as student treasurer. He felt “bummed and discouraged” when it became clear that school wouldn’t resume in person that year or even the next.

“The class of 2020 got it pretty bad because they didn’t get graduation or prom,” said Fajardo, now 22. “But I still stand on the fact that the class of 2021 had it way worse, because we had everything taken from us. Not only was it junior prom and opportunities, but almost our entire senior year.”

During his senior year Fajardo kept busy with virtual student government meetings and planned fundraisers with local boba shops and pizza places. He played Call of Duty and sometimes fell asleep in Zoom class.

He thought that was all behind him once he entered Cal State San Bernardino as a business major in 2021.

“Because I felt thwarted in my high school career, I took that to heart in my college career and really wanted to make the most of it,” he said.

Fajardo became a programming coordinator for his residence hall. But it was an uphill battle to get anyone to join in activities.

“Only a few extroverted people were coming out to these events, but the introverted students were stuck in their dorm rooms and not wanting to come out,” he said.

Students welcomed low-key gatherings such as video nights or arts-and-crafts sessions. But a “homecoming-esqe small dance party” with a DJ, theme and decorations drew only 50 guests.

“We tried to bring back some of what was lost, but it just didn’t pan out well,” he said. “It just fell on its face.”

Some classes also were disappointing. Although professors found students disengaged, Fajardo thought some professors were also checked out, recycling online lessons from the remote learning period for use in asynchronous classes, where students work at their own pace.

“They taught online through COVID and then reposted their lectures for asynchronous classes where they don’t need to teach and can count it as a class, when all they’re doing is clicking a button,” he said. “There’s no real interaction, no feedback from professors in some of these classes.”

In his junior year Fajardo ran for student government president and won, which gave him a bigger platform to “build back campus culture.” Drawing on his dorm experience, he tried to offer something for everyone. A “Cosmic Coyote” night drew 900 students with laid-back bowling rounds, karaoke, line dancing and a high-energy mosh pit outside. That became an annual event, and a lesson in leadership for Fajardo.

“I think a lot of my growth as a leader came in because before I was more oblivious to what other people’s interests are, or what I think other people’s interests are,” he said.

The largest production that year was “Coyote Fest,” which drew about 7,000 people to a concert featuring rapper Schoolboy Q, along with rides, slides, a ferris wheel, mechanical bull and jousting.

Fajardo graduated in May and plans to pursue a master’s degree and a career in nonprofit fundraising.

“It’s cool for me, starting on the campus and seeing where it was when I first got here, in comparison to where it is now,” he said. “Tradition is the backbone of campus culture.”

Maintaining motivation to graduate

One challenge to keeping students in college comes from the regional job market, Boyd-Davidson said. After all, pay at many warehouse jobs in the Inland Empire start at about $20 per hour and can rise to $35 per hour or more for supervisory positions.

“The Inland Empire has some of the lowest graduation rates in the country,” she said. “We know we’re fighting an uphill battle to get students in school and keep them in school, especially because at warehouse jobs, which we’re surrounded by, the wages are so high.”

For students paying their own bills or helping support families, the payoff of a college degree isn’t always obvious, she said.

Katie Honeycutt, 21, graduated from San Gorgonio High School in San Bernardino in 2021 and enrolled at San Bernardino Valley College in a pharmacy technician program in spring, 2022.

“I had a six-month gap because I didn’t know exactly where to start, and I didn’t have the guidance because nobody in my family was in college,” Honeycutt said.

While she enjoyed some in-person college classes, she switched to online classes to coordinate with her work schedule as a supervisor at Ross Dress for Less. The virtual college courses were just as hard as remote learning in high school, she said, and she was missing math skills and other fundamentals she should have learned in her senior year.

“I ended up dropping (the classes), because it was just too much to handle all at once,” Honeycutt said. “I do have stuff to pay, and I can’t just focus on just school.”

Rather than only highlighting the financial rewards of a college degree, Davidson-Boyd said university officials gained traction by discussing the less immediate benefits of higher education: the greater range of career choices college graduates have and the opportunity to contribute to their communities.

While students who started college during the pandemic still feel a sense of loss or hardship, many who graduate have a sense of accomplishment for having made it through.

“There’s resiliency, because of what they had to face in starting their collegiate journey,” Mata said. “I just remind them how special they are and how proud they should be.”

This article was and was republished under the license.

What was supposed to be a day of celebration for students at Gratts Learning Academy for Young Scholars turned into one of chaos as immigration enforcement in and around Los Angeles — along with subsequent protests and attempts to quash them — reportedly left some of their relatives too fearful to attend the elementary school’s graduation.

Gratts is in the city’s Westlake District, where immigration raids Friday led to a showdown between demonstrators and law enforcement agencies that persisted throughout the weekend. Altogether,  were arrested in the L.A. area. In Downtown Los Angeles, near Westlake, the sight of blazes on several blocks — after riot police lobbed flashbang rounds at crowds, and protesters set off fireworks and torched cars — called to mind the wildfires that ravaged the region at the start of the year.

President Donald Trump on Sunday deployed the National Guard in this deeply blue city that opposes his mass deportations policy, a move that critics — including former Vice President Kamala Harris — argued intensified confrontations between protesters and the authorities. Commuters driving to work on Monday morning saw what remained of the clashes — self-driving Waymo cars burnt to crisps and graffiti tagged all over downtown businesses and buildings.

Schools are still reeling from the raids and the unrest, with commencement ceremonies set to continue this week.

Officials acknowledge that many families in the district — which includes an estimated immigrant students — plan to sit out commencement because of concerns about immigration enforcement. LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho described that decision as “a heartbreak” during a news conference Monday.

“I’ve spoken with parents who’ve told me that their daughter will be the first in their family to graduate high school, and they’re not going to be there to witness it because they have a fear of the place of graduation being targeted,” Carvalho said. “What nation are we? Who in their right mind would accept that reality?”

Fears have been stoked by unfounded rumors such as the one that emerged on Friday that an immigration raid took place at Gratts’ graduation. “The claims that immigration enforcement activity arrived at the school and during the event are false,” an LAUSD spokesperson told The 19th.

The superintendent, an immigrant from Portugal who was formerly undocumented, said the district is taking steps to protect each graduation site, whether on or off campus. The school police will “establish perimeters of safety” around graduation locations and intervene if any federal agency tries to disrupt the ceremonies, Carvalho said.

“We’ve instructed our principals to not create lines, to not restrict access,” he said. “As soon as [families] come, they will enter the venues where the graduations are taking place, reducing the risk for them while on the street waiting to get in. We also have authorized the principals to allow parents to remain at the venue for as long as it takes should there be any immigration enforcement action around the area where the graduations are taking place.”

School police will also remain on site well after the ceremonies end to allow parents to exit safely. And, in limited capacities, the district will create opportunities for families to watch their children graduate via Zoom.

Carvalho said that the recent raids and unrest happened at the worst possible time, given that over 100 graduation ceremonies will be taking place throughout LAUSD Monday and Tuesday, the last day of school. Still, he said the district is prepared to protect students, staff and families.

“Every child has a constitutional right to a public education,” he said. “Therefore, every child and their parent has a right to celebrate the culmination of their educational success.”

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the woman-led labor union representing Los Angeles Unified educators, has also spoken out against the immigration enforcement that took place in Los Angeles last week.

“The ruthless targeting of hard-working people by ICE and law enforcement agencies is not only unjust but cruel,” the union said . “They are using violence and scare tactics to detain people who are simply trying to live and support their families. We will not stand for this.”

On Monday, United Teachers Los Angeles organized a rally to stand up for immigrant communities and to protest the arrest of union leader David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – United Service Workers West and SEIU California. Huerta was arrested Friday while observing an immigration raid at a Los Angeles garment factory. He has been charged with felony conspiracy to impede officers and could face up to six years in federal prison if convicted.

“We need more people to continue to be loud about these attacks by ICE,” the Los Angeles teachers’ union said. “History has taught us that we cannot afford to stand idly by while our community members are being ripped away from their schools, homes, neighborhoods and workplaces.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union, also expressed her outrage over Huerta’s arrest, the detainment of immigrant workers and Trump’s decision to mobilize the National Guard against protesters.

“It is no coincidence that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained David Huerta and raided the site of a known worker center — and we, alongside the entire labor movement, are demanding his and others’ immediate release,” Weingarten said in a statement. “The assault on Los Angeles contradicts all this country stands for. We are a nation made stronger by immigrant workers, stronger by the unions that represent them, and stronger by the rule of law.” Huerta was released from custody Monday afternoon.

Kamala Harris criticized the violent repression of mostly peaceful protesters in Los Angeles, singling out Trump for his role in the unrest that ensued. Harris has lived in L.A.’s Brentwood neighborhood since marrying Doug Emhoff in 2014, though she was largely based in Washington, D.C., as vice president.

“Los Angeles is my home, and like so many Americans, I am appalled at what we are witnessing on the streets of our city,” . “Deploying the National Guard is a dangerous escalation meant to provoke chaos. In addition to recent ICE raids in Southern California and across our nation, it is part of the Trump administration’s cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division.”

The White House, meanwhile, took aim at the protesters, as well as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats.

“Radical left lunatics are taking to the streets of Los Angeles — law enforcement, at police cruisers, , and freeways — because the Trump administration is removing violent criminal illegal immigrants from their communities,” the White House said in a statement Monday. “Democrats like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass should be thanking President Trump for stepping up and leading where they refused — and for ridding their streets of criminal illegal immigrant killers, rapists, and gangbangers.”

Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, sued the Trump administration Monday over , arguing that doing so infringed on the state’s sovereignty.

Los Angeles school leaders say they’re prepared for the Trump administration to escalate immigration enforcement, including on campuses. In January, Trump lifted restrictions on immigration enforcement in “sensitive locations,” including schools, churches and hospitals. The policy change has led parents across the country to pull children out of class. During Carvalho’s address on Monday, he said that two federal vans were parked near schools.

“No action has been taken, but we interpret those actions as actions of intimidation, instilling fear that may lead to self-deportation,” he said. “That is not the community we want to be, that is not the state or the nation that we ought to be.”

LAUSD is urging parents or guardians who see immigration activity to contact their school or call the district’s Family Hotline: (213) 443-1300.

was originally reported by Nadra Nittle of . .

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When 18-year-old Edgar Brito thinks about what he’ll do in the future, mechanical engineering is high on the list.

The senior at Washington state’s Toppenish High School first considered the career after he joined a STEM group in middle school. In a ninth grade class, he researched the earning potential for a STEM degree (“so much more money”) and the demand for mechanical engineers (“exploding”).

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So Brito took some engineering classes at his high school, became president of his state’s Technology Student Association, and is starting at the University of Washington this fall on a pre-science track.

Brito’s experience is what state education leaders hoped for when they replaced the high school exit exam with . When he graduates in June, Brito will have completed several diploma pathways, including ones aimed at preparing for college and building career skills.

But his experience isn’t necessarily typical. He has friends who have no idea what pathway they’re on — or if they’re on one at all. The requirements could be clearer and advisers could spend more time talking about them with students, he said.

“Making sure that we know exactly what our pathway is and what it means to be on a pathway would have definitely helped out a lot more students,” Brito said.

Five years after Washington rolled out its pathways, they appear to have helped more students who aren’t college-bound to graduate, . But the system has also created new issues and replicated some old ones.

For the Class of 2023 — the most recent year with available data — around 1 in 5 seniors didn’t have a pathway. That meant they weren’t on track to graduate within four years and at risk of dropping out. Some students relied on pandemic-era waivers that don’t exist anymore. That’s similar to the share of students who didn’t graduate on time in 2019, the final year of the exit exam.

Asian and white students are much more likely to complete one of the math and English pathways, considered the college-prep route, while Native students, English learners, and students with disabilities are more likely to have no graduation pathway.

“The implementation of graduation pathways has reinforced that the student groups who are the furthest from educational justice are completing the requirement at lower rates,” .

Across the state, students don’t have equal access to the pathways. Many schools, especially smaller and rural ones, struggle to offer more than a handful of career and technical education classes. Some career pathways train students for low-paying jobs with little opportunity for advancement. Some students get funneled to the military pathway, despite having no aspirations to serve, because the aptitude test is easier to pass. Many teens, like Brito’s friends, find the pathways confusing.

Washington is not alone. . And some, at their pathways. Many have struggled to address the same big questions, including what exactly high school is for, and what students should need to do to earn a diploma.

Now the state board of education is .

Piling on more ways for students to graduate is not the answer, said Brian Jeffries, the policy director at the Partnership for Learning, an education foundation affiliated with the Washington Roundtable, which is made up of executives from across the state.

“Let’s better prepare our students to meet the pathways, [rather] than keep creating a smorgasbord or a cafeteria of options, which too often turn into trapdoors,” said Jeffries, who sits on the . Until disadvantaged kids have access to better instruction and more support, he said, “we’re going to keep spinning this wheel.”

The path to 100 high school graduation pathways

Back in the early 2000s, many states raised the bar to graduate from high school with the hope it would get more kids to college. As a result, by 2012,, including Washington state.

But as student debt soared and some questioned the value of higher education, schools abandoned that college-for-all mentality. Critics of exit exams argued that they blocked too many disadvantaged students from graduating.

In Washington state’s final year of the exit exam, around 1 in 10 high school seniors didn’t pass the English language arts portion, and 1 in 5 didn’t pass the math test, . The law that nixed the exit exam had broad support from the Washington teachers union, state education officials, and parents. Lawmakers passed it unanimously.

Just six states require an exit exam now, with and dropping their tests this school year.

But absent an exit exam, on what students should have to do to prove they’re ready to graduate.

Nationwide, there are now more than 100 ways to graduate from high school, according to a, a K-12 consulting firm. The myriad options provide flexibility, but “also contribute to the lack of clarity about what it means to earn a diploma,” the report found.

When the nation’s main K-12 education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed 10 years ago, it tasked schools with getting students ready for college and career. But many states and schools are still trying to figure out how to do the career part well.

“Part of the challenge, frankly, is that schools are going through a bit of a post-high-stakes-test-based accountability identity crisis,” said Shaun Dougherty, a professor of education and policy at Boston College.

Michael Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, says that’s partly because for all the talk about changing high schools, graduation policies are still fairly restrictive. One reason Washington is revisiting its policies now is because some educators worry fills up students’ schedules, leaving little time for apprenticeships and other hands-on learning.

Many kids are still “sleepwalking through six or seven class periods a day, mostly through college-prep courses,” Petrilli said, with “maybe a few career-tech electives on the side.”

“We haven’t really unleashed high schools to do things very differently,” Petrilli said. “If we actually think that career tech is valuable, if we think that college-for-all was a mistake, then we need to be willing to act on it.”

Diploma pathways can bolster teens’ interest in school

What’s happening in the Toppenish School District illustrates the potential of the pathways model.

The district, which serves around 3,700 students in south-central Washington, , including in growing industries, like health care and agriculture. The career-oriented pathway has helped increase some students’ interest in school.

“It is very hands-on, and so it’s definitely more engaging,” said Monica Saldivar, Toppenish’s director of career and technical education. The old one-size-fits-all approach had “a negative impact for our students with diverse learning needs, academic challenges, and also language barriers.”

Just before the state overhauled its graduation requirements, over 81% of Toppenish students graduated within four years. Now over 89% do.

The improvements have been especially pronounced for English learners and Native students, many of whom live on the Yakama Nation. Since the state introduced pathways, Native student graduation rates have risen from 67% to 88%.

Since pathways launched, the district has added several career-technical education courses, including advanced welding and classes that prepare students to work as medical transcriptionists or home health care aides. That can require some careful career counseling with students, as those jobs are in high demand but don’t pay well unless students get additional training or schooling and move up the career ladder.

Still, the expanded offerings have helped some students tailor their post-high school plans.

Frances Tilley, a Toppenish senior who’s headed to Gonzaga University in the fall, will graduate in June after completing both college-prep and career-oriented pathways.

The 18-year-old took two of the new sports medicine classes and liked learning about what to do if you have a concussion. (Don’t try to stay awake. “We learned that’s not true,” Tilley said.)

She followed that up with another health care class that touched on different disciplines. She gravitated toward psychology and now plans to get a master’s in counseling and become a mental health worker.

Pathways can also help schools expose students to career options earlier.

Three years ago, Toppenish started offering middle schoolers two-week labs to test drive careers such as marketing, nursing, or culinary arts. By the end of eighth grade, they’ve learned about 10 different careers. Now school counselors use students’ interests to help plot their high school schedules.

Kaylee Celestino, 16, had long considered becoming a teacher. The Toppenish sophomore often gets “education” as an answer when she takes career quizzes. But the career-exploration labs also piqued her interest in science, and now she could also envision becoming a pediatric nurse. So her course schedule reflects that with advanced biology and college-level chemistry.

“I just want to help people out,” she said, “like my teachers have helped out me.”

Staffing, standards, data gaps make pathways challenging

Staffing career and technical classes is one of the biggest hurdles to doing pathways well.

Washington makes it easier than other states for . But many schools still struggle to attract and retain teachers for attractive fields like health services and welding when the private sector beckons.

“These are lucrative fields,” said Dougherty, who has researched career education programs in several states, including Washington. “It’s hard to convince people to give up that salary to become full-time educators.”

That creates extra work for schools. Saldivar, for example, meets regularly with regional employers to learn about their workforce needs. That helps inform whether Toppenish should drop or add certain classes, and which teachers to recruit. Saldivar is constantly networking and following up on “so and so may know someone” tips.

Figuring out how to hold all students to a high standard when they are meeting different criteria to graduate is a challenge, too. Some worry Washington’s pathways are too flexible.

The state rolled out a new pathway this year that allows students to graduate by completing a project, work-related experience, or community service. . But students don’t have to work with a teacher at their school, and if they choose to work with an outside mentor, .

“Where are they finding these people?” said Jeffries of the Partnership for Learning. “Is their opinion an expert opinion that we could trust, or is this based on vibes?”

Experts say it’s also important for students to understand what their likely earnings and other outcomes will be depending on which career pathway they follow.

“We should not be talking about CTE in a very generic way,” said Dan Goldhaber, a professor at the University of Washington who has researched career and technical education teacher preparation in the state. “What the concentration is matters.”

But Washington state doesn’t yet know how students’ outcomes may vary depending on which career and technical education concentration they chose, Katie Hannig, a spokesperson for Washington’s state education agency, wrote in an email. .

The state also doesn’t yet know whether the pathway, or pathways, students completed were connected to their post-high school plan, which they must create to graduate. That hasn’t assuaged concerns that students are completing pathways disconnected from their college and career goals.

The state expects to get that data in the future, Hannig wrote. Analyzing how diploma pathways affect graduation trends and postsecondary outcomes could help schools target resources and support.

“Any new policy is a work in progress, but the fundamental core value of this policy is preparing students for their next step after high school graduation,” Hannig wrote. “Washington is proud to be one of those states that have established and continue to refine those pathways.”

For now, districts like Toppenish are scrambling to coordinate weekly college presentations, field trips to work sites, and military recruiter visits — “a little of everything,” Saldivar said — to hedge their bets.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

Want to know how students at your child’s school district are performing five or even 10 years down the line?

Today, California released a new tool that aims to make that question — and many others — much easier to answer. Known as the Cradle to Career Data System, consolidate data from roughly 3.5 million high school graduates in California, showing where they enrolled in college, what kinds of degrees they earned, and the wages they made four years after receiving a college diploma or certificate.

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For years, parents and researchers alike have complained that — with information spread out across various websites, drop-down menus and graphics. A new data system was a key priority for the Newsom administration, though it faced, in part because of data privacy concerns.

“We have people who’ve been calling for this (data system) for 10 years, for 20 years,” said Mary Ann Bates, executive director of the Cradle to Career Data System. “The effort the state is making now to bring this together is so that students, families, educators and policymakers can have this information at their fingertips.”

Some other states, such as , have already pioneered better approaches, creating a single, understandable website that houses data from the state’s K-12, college and workforce providers. In 2019, California allocated more than $24 million so it could catch up.

But today’s data tool represents just a fraction of the state’s education and workforce data. It only looks at students who attend one of California’s public colleges and universities and it only looks at students who graduate from a public high school. One tool by the California Department of Education shows that among 2015 California public high school graduates who headed to college, or university within 16 months.

Bates said her team will eventually update these public dashboards to include information about students who attend private or out-of-state colleges and who don’t graduate high school.

As part of this data system, the state has also promised to including information about early childhood education and teachers’ training and retention. Bates’ team initially said the teacher training information would be available by June 2024, but it remains in limbo. She said that tool would be released “soon,” though she did not specify a date.

How useful is it?

Although the Cradle to Career Data System is presenting information in new ways, the information itself isn’t new. California has already developed similar tools, but none so widely accessible to the public or incorporating data from so many different schools and state agencies.

The state Education Department already allowed users to download data and sort college-going rates by school or district, although it’s unlikely most parents would spend the time to download the spreadsheet and try to understand all the column names. One strength of the system is its ease of use — the tool displays key data visually and intuitively.

But each data system may use slightly different numbers. For example, the department uses , which has a of what it means to “graduate” high school. The Cradle to Career Data System looks only at traditional graduates and not people who receive a GED, said Ryan Estrellado, the Cradle to Career system’s director of data programs.

The nonprofit Educational Results Partnership operated one of the many predecessors to the Cradle to Career Data System, and president Alex Barrios said he’s skeptical that the state’s new tool is a real improvement.

“If the dashboard doesn’t start the cohort at 9th grade, then the dashboard is useless,” wrote Barrios in a text to CalMatters. Just over 88% of students who started as ninth graders finished high school five years later, according to , but for certain groups, such as African American or Native American students, the graduation rates were lower.

Without information about high school dropouts, the new tool makes it look like students attend college at higher rates than they actually do, he said. It’s called the Cradle to Career Data System, he added, not the “the High School Graduation to College Data System.” In the previous tool that Barrios helped operate, known as Cal-PASS Plus, researchers could look not just at high school graduates but also at all students who enrolled in 9th grade.

Bates said the Cradle to Career Data System is only as powerful as the data that schools and agencies share. This current data uses information from the past 10 years, which is only enough time to measure the long-term college and career outcomes of high school graduates, she said, adding that other data, such as information about the long-term fates of younger students, will be added as it’s available.

Although the data lacks certain features, it may still lead to powerful findings: One of the new data dashboards shows that community college students who receive a certificate earn more than those who receive an associate degree— even though certificate programs typically take much less time to complete.

The Cradle to Career Data System is “a neutral source of information,” said Bates. “Our office is not going to weigh in on specific policies or interpret the why.”

This article was and was republished under the license.

Whether a prospective student speaks Spanish, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic or Mam — a Mayan language used in parts of Guatemala and Mexico — Oakland Unified School District’s enrollment office has a staffer who can help. 

If a newcomer communicates using a less common tongue like Dari and Pashto — spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran — they’ll call in favors from local community groups to translate. 

What staffers won’t do, unlike in many other districts across the country, is allow a language divide to become a barrier to an immigrant student’s enrollment. 

“We take seriously our call to be a sanctuary district and a community school, not just in name, not just as a tagline or the sexy new initiative, but as an authentic calling,” said Kilian Betlach, the district’s executive director for enrollment.

The approach stands out compared to schools throughout the U.S.: A recent 74 investigation found older newcomers were rampantly denied admission, including hundreds of times in states where they have a legal right to attend based on their age. 

Our reporting showed schools allow a wide variety of staff to answer critical enrollment questions — often incorrectly — and are prone to steer these students to adult education, night school and GED programs. Many deny admission based on a lack of transcripts or other paperwork, obstacles Oakland tries hard to overcome. 

When enrollment requests to the 34,000-student Bay Area district are simple, involving students 17 or under who have at least some of the necessary paperwork, registration at the district begins and ends with enrollment office staff. 

But when a newcomer has no proof of address or birth certificate and is over age 18 — they’re sent down the hall to the Refugee and Asylee office, which handles the most challenging cases.

“We hope to be the front door to services in Oakland,” said Nate Dunstan, program manager for refugees and newcomers at the district. 

For many families, he said, his office is their first point of contact with any local governmental entity. 

“We want to help make it a smooth entry to our schools, make sure kids are placed in the right program … that is easy to get to and has supportive services,” he said. 

Marvin Rivas Zavala, who came to Oakland’s enrollment office on a recent sunny morning alongside his mother and cousin, was in the equivalent of 11th grade in El Salvador when he left for America. 

He arrived in the United States in late October speaking little English. The district would have placed the 17-year-old in a higher grade if he was proficient in the language, but Dunstan instead enrolled him in 10th to give the teen more time in high school.

While some new students are upset to see graduation pushed back, Rivas Zavala is focused on long-term goals: He wants to be fully prepared for college, he said, like the other young people in his family — including his brother and cousin — who have already enrolled in higher education in the U.S. and abroad.

“I want to do software engineering after high school,” he said with certainty. 

It took his family less than 30 minutes to register him. Staffers say they’re determined to make the process quick and easy. 

In their initial intake but after a child is enrolled, they ask about immigration status in the event that they can help — by providing, for example, the name of a legitimate immigration attorney — and make sense of foreign transcripts. 

If they have a relative in a particular high school, staffers might first send a new arrival there hoping it will encourage their attendance before they switch to a more appropriate setting. Oakland Unified might also place them on a campus where they can find peers from their homeland to ease their transition. 

Esmeralda Flores Paredes, 17 and from El Salvador, came to the United States on Sept. 8 and was in government detention in Texas for nearly a month before she was released to her sister in California on Oct. 4. 

She finished high school in El Salvador — even completing a few months of college there — and hopes to graduate high school here in a year.  

After that: “I want to keep studying,” said the young woman, who plans on working in the tourism industry. 

After a quick chat with enrollment staff, Flores Paredes was assigned to Castlemont High School and then transferred to another campus, Rudsdale Continuation High School, which has a program designed to make attendance and graduation attainable for older newcomers. 

Enrollment staff use students’ first visit to help them — and their families — apply for public health insurance and ask if they are facing a housing crisis or any other issue that could keep them from attending. 

“That’s our ultimate goal, that the student is in school,” Dunstan said. “But there are, of course, a million reasons why it would be hard for that to happen.”

Dunstan and his colleagues gave their cell phone numbers to several newcomers who came through the enrollment office earlier this year, telling them they were not only concerned about their registration, but their well-being. 

Seeking school admission can be anxiety provoking for non English-speaking families, who have no idea whether staff will accommodate them. Their enrollment requests come at a particularly perilous time: On the eve of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term of office, a fight he won after vilifying immigrants.

These students and families don’t know whether he will follow through on his pledge to rid the country of its roughly : While the promise seemed critical to his victory, it’s been criticized for its .  

“I mean, it’s difficult to see families overwhelmed about the election outcomes,” said Cristhian Pineda Diaz, an unaccompanied immigrant youth specialist. “It’s also difficult to hear students being afraid to be separated from their parents. But I’m hopeful because we will do our best job to help families in every way possible.”

New students leave with basic supplies, including backpacks, pens, pencils, binders, folders and notebooks — whatever local charities and other organizations provide — and when they come with younger siblings, they might also leave with diapers or new shoes. 

If they need immunizations and find the most popular clinic is backed up for months, enrollment staff will find other sites that can help. And if a family is overburdened by bills, the district can connect them with community-based organizations that can offer financial assistance.

In an effort to further ease the registration process, newcomers’ receiving schools are quickly notified about their enrollment, with students’ academic and immunization status almost immediately available through a shared database. 

Staff will also travel from the main enrollment office to another location in this 78-square-mile city that might be easier for newcomer families to reach.

That’s just the effort Oakland Unified makes for those students who actively pursue registration: It has an entirely different plan for those who don’t. 

Staffers also look for would-be students in the community. Qoc’avib Revolorio, another unaccompanied immigrant youth specialist, has, in the past, teamed up with Street Level Health Project, a local nonprofit that delivers food to day laborers at area pickup spots.

“Since that organization has a bit of street cred, I would join them on their rounds from 7:30 to 10 a.m.,” said Revolorio, who would make these trips prior to the start of each semester or just before the school marking periods would begin. “We would hand out flyers, shake hands, ask any of the laborers if they had children or nieces or nephews that just arrived … that we could help personally enroll in school.”

He’d use the opportunity, he said, to scope the crowd for younger faces, approach potential students with a smile, talk to them about learning English and about the district’s soccer program before he’d ask if they needed any help with immigration issues.  

Staff also regularly call former dropouts and ask why they are no longer attending and conduct home visits when necessary. Much of Dunstan’s work is funded by the California Department of Social Services. A host of other organizations offer further assistance to newcomers and their families: , for example, provides families with money after they attend a financial literacy class while contributes up to $2,000 toward rent.  

The district erects billboards to encourage families to enroll by visiting ChooseOUSD.org, runs targeted digital and Spanish radio ads that promote pre-K and transitional kindergarten, a bridge to elementary education that has been particularly beneficial for English learners. They even operate a booth at the local Día de los Muertos celebration, sharing similar information.

Oakland aims to reach families wherever they are and, to that end, technology is key, Betlach said. Its previous enrollment system wasn’t optimized for mobile, making it difficult for many newcomer families to register. 

“It looked like Netscape navigator,” he said, referring to the long-defunct web browser. “Low-income communities use all of their internet through the phone, so if your tools are not mobile enhanced, you are pushing out low-income users.”

Sometimes, enrollment staff said, it can take months, or even a year to convince students to pursue their education. In such cases, staffers might help them obtain work permits, find jobs, locate safer housing or child care so a teen is freed up to learn.

They try hard to make as few refusals as possible, recently admitting, for example, a 20-year-old from Guatemala with no high school credits. They fought for nine months to help her find a path to attendance.

The district welcomes her — and scores of others just like her — during a particularly difficult time, as it faces a projected next year and is wrestling with closing and consolidating schools. 

“There is a moral force to recognize and welcome all members of your community, not just those that fit into neat boxes or will help drive data-driven achievement narratives,” Betlach said. “We believe this, truly, even when no one is looking.”

This story was produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program.

They come to the enrollment office at 18, 19, or 20, often without transcripts, identification or immunizations. Some have massive gaps in their education and many speak little English. 

Any one of these would be reason enough for districts across the country to deny admission, but not here. 

With ample enrollment staff speaking a variety of languages, Oakland Unified School District offers newcomers a chance to register at one of six schools based upon their needs. And the 34,000-student district works hard to address other issues, too. 

No money for transportation? Here’s a bus pass. Worried about school supplies? Take this new backpack. Anxious about an upcoming court case? Here’s the name of a trustworthy immigration attorney. 

It was just what Jose Rafael Villegas Pena was hoping for, sitting inside the enrollment office on a recent afternoon. His 18-year-old twin brother was already studying in the district and told him about its supportive staff. 

Villegas Pena, who had been living with relatives in Texas, was both nervous and excited about this next chapter of his life. College is a must, he said, tapping his black high-top Converse All Stars on the floor. And Oakland Unified, his brother told him, would help him get there. 

“I need college,” said Villegas Pena, who came to the U.S. from El Salvador in January 2022. “I want to be a pilot.”

Oakland doesn’t have to do any of this. While California had in 2022 — and some of the most far-reaching laws to protect them — it provides no stipulation for general education students who wish to enroll in high school past the state’s compulsory attendance age of 18.

That additional time is critical to the older immigrant students Oakland administrators say they’re compelled to help.

“It is a moral mandate,” said Carmelita Reyes, a principal who has worked with such students for years. “It is not a state mandate that we serve these kids.”

But even in the 35 states where students have a legal right to attend high school at least until age 20, they are frequently turned away, The 74 found in a recent investigation. 

The news outlet called hundreds of schools across the country asking if they would accept an older newcomer with limited English and significant interruptions in their schooling — exactly the type of student Oakland welcomes.

In an already xenophobic era, our story revealed pervasive hostility and suspicion toward these new arrivals. Donald Trump’s re-election might leave them further imperiled. The Oakland school community is on edge about his , which could send these students and their families directly into the path of chaos in their homeland. 

“Unsurprisingly, we’re seeing a lot of concern about their immigration case precarity, and anxiety about the future,” said Lauren Markham, director of the Oakland International High School Learning Lab. “We’ll need more legal services, more mental health services — all of this when the school district is ”&�Բ�����;

A drop in enrollment, meanwhile, could trigger further funding decreases, Markham said. But no one knows what to expect of a leader who used race-baiting and fear to help re-win his post but whose most ambitious deportation plans might be thwarted by their and .

Markham worked in Oakland schools when the first Trump administration imposed as part of its “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration. Thousands of children were taken from their parents in a calamitous and unpopular program that

“It’s so hard to read the tea leaves,” Markham said. “In the months after family separation began, our arrivals continued to be high. So, it’s really hard to say what the future holds.”

Staff and students aren’t in shock as they were when Trump was first elected in 2016: They know what it’s like to survive his administration, “to fight for human rights and basic protections,” she said, and they’ve weathered strongmen before — here and back home.

“I think we’re all just anticipatorily exhausted,” she said. 

In the meantime, Oakland, just 12 miles east of San Francisco, will continue making high school enrollment and graduation possible for this group of students in ways that are unlike much of the rest of the country — and the state of California itself.

‘We had to rethink high school’ 

Young immigrants were leaving Oakland’s comprehensive high schools at an alarming rate in the early 2000s. 

“Newcomers at the traditional large schools were dropping out massively,” said Reyes. “The schools were not designed to support them. The district was looking for something innovative that would better serve students.”

So, in 2007, it partnered with , which designs, develops and supports schools and programs for recent immigrants and refugees, to open a new site, Oakland International, to address their needs. 

And it worked for years until a massive uptick in far exceeded the school’s capacity. Oakland International, when full, enrolls approximately 400 students. 

“The district had to adapt,” Reyes said. “We had to rethink high school.”

Oakland expanded its newcomer programs at several sites but a certain subset of students — often Central American boys who immigrated when they were 16 or older and had missed some school back home — still weren’t making it to graduation, no matter which school they attended. 

In an effort to learn why, the district commissioned a study in 2017 asking roughly 50 dropouts what caused them to leave: They needed a far more flexible schedule, possibly with shorter hours, they said. 

So, the district opened another program, this one located at Rudsdale Continuation High School, specifically for newcomers. It’s since switched locations, but its mission has stayed the same. 

Reyes, who spent part of her honeymoon in Burma visiting nearby refugee camps and hospitals to better understand a subset of immigrant students arriving in her district, is its principal. 

“There is nothing pretty about educating newcomers,” said the Princeton and Columbia University graduate. “It’s not elegant and it’s not linear.”&�Բ�����;

The newcomer program at Rudsdale, which opened with 25 students but grew to 100 in just a few months, was built for those determined to learn English and earn a high school diploma. 

The staff offers wraparound services, taking students to the Social Security office, the courthouse, the eye doctor and local shelters when needed. Anything to keep them in school. 

“The social service element makes the rest of it work,” said Sara Green, a social worker at Rudsdale for nearly four years until July 2021. “You can’t expect these kids to come to school if their other needs are not met.”&�Բ�����;

Despite enormous obstacles, many persevere, Green said.

“I have never met a group of kids who were more incredibly focused on figuring it out and making it work,” she said. “They were the most enthusiastic group of young people. They just felt so grateful for getting to be in school.”

Emma Batten-Bowman, a former assistant principal at Rudsdale, was at the school when it opened.

“I had visitors from San Francisco, North Carolina and New York,” she said. “People were coming in constantly saying, ‘I can’t believe this exists. This is amazing. How did you get your district to do this?’ It actually doesn’t take that much: Every district has a continuation program. All we did was create this little wing.”

But the notion of designing schools and programs solely to deliver education more effectively to older immigrant students — and Green’s observation of how fiercely they grabbed hold of that chance — is in stark contrast to what The 74 discovered in its undercover enrollment investigation. 

Senior reporter Jo Napolitano spent 16 months calling 630 high schools in every state and Washington, D.C., trying to enroll a fictitious 19-year-old named Hector Guerrero. Napolitano told school officials he was her nephew, newly arrived from Venezuela. 

Hector was rejected 330 times — including more than 200 instances in which he had a right to attend based upon his age. 

Of the 35 schools that Napolitano contacted in California, not a single one accepted him: 33 denied Hector and two others said they were likely to.

Dozens of school staffers from across the country — including those who ultimately enrolled our test student — told Napolitano Hector would never make it to graduation day.

“To be explicit, it’s going to be a waste of time,” said Jim Karedes, principal of Wisconsin’s Delavan-Darien High School. “We could babysit him and that’s about what it would be. It would not behoove him to go down this pathway. He is 100% going to be a dropout.”&�Բ�����;

Work, pay rent, go to school

Roughly 1.1 million people ages 18 to 20 entered the United States between 2012 and 2021, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Obtaining a high school diploma could help many prepare for college or the workforce, advocates say. But with so many demands on their time — including jobs and caring for younger siblings — the path to graduation is rarely easy. 

Rudsdale found a way to address students’ pain points with shorter school days and fewer required credits — 190 as opposed to the typical 230 — plus the added support from staff. It currently serves between 150 to 200 newcomers: It graduates students every 12 weeks and takes on new ones for the first nine weeks of each trimester. 

New arrivals to Oakland Unified, who have graduated and gone onto college, sometimes find themselves back there. Rafael Barrios, 25, who hails from El Salvador and graduated from Oakland International in 2017, earned his bachelor’s degree in linguistics and Spanish studies at UC Santa Cruz. He now works as program coordinator for Soccer Without Borders, a club credited for keeping many of Oakland Unified’s immigrant kids in school.  

Rudsdale has helped more than 250 people earn their diploma so far, including those who would never have that opportunity in a traditional high school setting, administrators said. 

In 2023-24, newcomers at Rudsdale had a 58.3% cohort graduation rate with 30.6% of those students still enrolled but not yet graduated and a dropout rate of 11.1%, Reyes said. Oakland Unified had a 79.5% cohort graduation rate in 2023-24 and a .

Belinda Perez Gomez, 20, of Guatemala, is determined to be among the graduates.

“School is helping me a lot in English,” said the aspiring nurse. “I like the teachers. They have patience, and when you can’t do something, they are there to help you.”&�Բ�����;

Perez Gomez, who lives with her sister, acknowledged it can take students like her more time to graduate because they have responsibilities typical high schoolers don’t: She pays $750 a month toward her rent and while her family is supportive, everyone is shouldering bills. 

Paula Rodriguez Tinjacá, 20, came to the United States eight months ago from Colombia and hopes to work for an airline. She had almost finished high school in her home country and enrolled at Rudsdale to learn English, earn her diploma and apply to college. 

“There is more opportunity here than in Colombia,” she said.

Upon its opening, a majority of students enrolled in Rudsdale’s newcomer program were between 18 and 21 and most came from Guatemala, followed by Honduras and El Salvador. 

According to a recent in-house survey conducted by the school, only 40% of Rudsdale students live with a parent — many stay with distant relatives or friends, some of whom they had never met before coming to America — and a majority pay rent in whole or in part. 

More than 60% miss school because of it. 

But none of the staffers at Rudsdale berate or count out those who skip class, arrive late or leave early. Teachers are grateful they can participate at all.

When a student fails to show up, staffers ask why and see if there is an obstacle they can remove. Some have tenuous living situations and move out of abusive homes with the school’s help. 

Nearly a third of Oakland Unified’s students are . Half speak another language at home and nearly 81% of all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a key indicator of poverty. 

The district currently serves 3,100 newcomers — including 206 refugees, 254 asylum seekers and 775 unaccompanied children. 

Batten-Bowman, the former assistant principal at Rudsdale, acknowledged that some of its older immigrant students could have attended adult education instead. 

“But adult education doesn’t offer a diploma,” she said. “It’s more just like classes. They have some great stuff, but it’s not high school. If they want to be in high school and have a high school experience, why wouldn’t I give it to them? This is something Oakland got right. We should be getting so much credit for identifying the need and creating an option that works for this group.”

A different approach to learning 

Eleven students sit down for an algebra class on a recent sun-drenched afternoon. On the board is a simple, affirmative statement: “I can solve any kind of multi-step equation.”

The room is crowded with several wide, white desks — all arranged in a crude U shape — that seat two students each. And the walls are nearly covered with posters relating basic mathematical concepts, including multiplication tables. 

A dozen small apples rest atop a microwave near the door alongside cartons of cereal for those who might have missed a meal: Rudsale, which opens a food pantry inside its cafeteria every week, won’t allow an empty stomach to interfere with a linear equation. 

Teacher Nicholas Nguyen speaks some Spanish but relies on Google translate to communicate with his students, often leaving them encouraging notes on his whiteboard. 

“You’ve been showing up at least 4 times a week which is really good considering you have to work,” he wrote to one learner. 

While he sometimes spoke to the class as a whole, Nguyen spent much of his time providing individual attention to those like Dilan Pinzon, 19 and from Colombia. Not the most engaged student at first, Pinzon blossomed into a diligent one who is now fully focused on college after learning he could play soccer there.

“I decided to come to high school because here there are new opportunities to graduate and learn more English and meet more people,” Pinzon said when math class ended. “What I want to do after graduating is study at college … and be able to play soccer, since I love it.”

When Reyes proposed, years ago, opening schools and programs to educate and graduate older students like Pinzon, her colleagues were flabbergasted. They asked if she thought it was appropriate or if she was somehow putting younger kids in harm’s way. 

“There were a lot of, ‘I would never do that,’ statements from other principals,” she recalled. “But we did it. And then when people came out to our school and saw our average graduate was close to 20 — a fleet of 19- and 20- and 21-year- olds — they asked, ‘What has that experience been like?’ ”

Reyes’s response surprised them. 

“I said, ‘It’s not the older kids who cause problems,’” she said. “If you are 19 and 20 years old, you can make a choice with your life. Am I going to go to work, sit on the couch or go to school? If you are going to come to school, humble yourself and forgo income to be with younger kids … you have made a commitment to yourself and you are pretty focused, by and large.” 

This story was produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program.

In 2020, for example, 10 states had graduation rates of 90% or higher, but only five did in 2022, according to Tuesday’s analysis from the , a network of nonprofits working to improve student outcomes. 

But the report suggests that the full impact of COVID school closures on graduation rates has yet to be realized. This year’s seniors, for example, were seventh graders when the pandemic hit in March, 2020 and likely spent much of eighth grade learning remotely or in a cycle of on-again, off-again in-person learning. 

That’s why the pandemic’s effects on graduation rates and college enrollment could have a “long tail,” the report says. 

“Graduating from high school is a long process,” said Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, which supports the Grad Partnership. “It’s the younger kids that may be more impacted.”

The pandemic disturbed a trend of rising graduation rates that began in 2011, driven largely by gains among minorities. But an overall increase following the pandemic was due to state and local efforts to minimize the impact of the COVID emergency rather than actual educational improvement, Balfanz said.

State and local decisions to relax grading policies, accept late work and drop exit exam requirements gave the appearance that more students were meeting expectations. That’s why additional information, like whether ninth graders have earned enough credits to advance to 10th grade, chronic absenteeism data and the rates of students taking advanced courses have become increasingly valuable indicators of whether students are on track. 

Meanwhile, states and districts varied widely on how deeply COVID affected families, how long schools were closed and whether they were equipped to respond to the crisis. 

“We know some schools took extraordinary efforts to make sure their seniors graduated,” Balfanz said. “Others may not have had that capacity.”&�Բ�����;

Some students lacked stable Wi-Fi at home or had to go to work when parents were sick, while other families had the resources to hire tutors and form pods or attended schools that reopened in the fall of 2020.

Ohio saw the largest increase in rates between 2019 and 2022 — from 82% to 86.2%, while New Jersey saw the greatest decline, from 90.6% to 85.2%. But actions in two large states — and — actually pushed the national rate to an all-time high, from 85.8% in 2019 to 86.6%.

Both states waived graduation requirements, like required courses and exams, for students. Meanwhile, New Jersey’s stricter definition of on-time graduation for students with disabilities likely contributed to the drop, the report said. 

At the district level, rates varied widely. Of the nearly 7,000 districts included in the analysis, about a third saw higher graduation rates in 2022 than in 2019, while roughly the same percentage saw a decline. Rates were stable in about 38% of districts.

But the data, Balfanz said, suggests that districts should start as soon as students enter high school to make sure they’re making progress toward graduation. 

 As part of their state accountability systems, six states currently monitor whether ninth graders are having a successful first year in high school. Data from five of those states — Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Oregon and Washington — shows significantly fewer students were on track in 2021-22 than in 2018-19.

“These students may bear more of the brunt of the pandemic’s impact on high school graduation rates than students who experienced the pandemic as 10th and 11th graders,” the report said.

Chronic absenteeism, which remains in some states, is also tougher to get under control at the high school level than in earlier grades and is “the wild card for a prolonged period of pandemic impacts on educational attainment,” the report said. 

‘Hybrid and weird’

Adam Larsen, assistant superintendent of the Oregon Community School District in Illinois, west of Chicago, remembers how much students who were seventh graders when schools shut down struggled in their freshman year. 

“That eighth grade year was hybrid and weird. We had social distancing and no vaccine,” he said. “Socially, they just didn’t mature. Freshman year tried to be normal, and they weren’t ready for normal.”

The Oregon district also offers an afterschool mentoring program, called Hawks Take Flight, designed to prevent students from falling so far behind, because of absenteeism or missing work, that they can’t graduate on time. 

At the weekly sessions, students talk about what’s getting in their way. If they meet their goals for the week, they earn prizes.

“Our graduation rate has been high and remains high because of the amount of support that we put in there,” Larsen said. “We have made it impossibly hard for students to fail unless they’ve chosen to fail.”&�Բ�����;

‘Make the diploma meaningful’

The way districts used their $190 billion in pandemic relief money also determined whether students received enough help to keep up with their work. 

Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School, in Fall River, Massachusetts, near the border with Rhode Island, hired virtual tutors, conducted home visits and “looked at the crisis as an opportunity to use funds to support students,” said Andrew Rebello, who was principal at the school until this past August. 

In 2021, without any diploma expectations waived, the school hit a record 98% . Massachusetts, however, just changed those expectations. In the general election, voters decided to scrap the requirement that students pass exams in English, science and math in order to graduate.

The vote is a sign that the shift toward waiving high-stakes tests wasn’t limited to the pandemic.

Harry Felder, executive director of FairTest, which advocates against standardized testing, celebrated the outcome. “Parents, educators and policymakers realize that these tests fail as drivers of education that our young people need to thrive in the modern world.” he said in a . 

But Rebello, now assistant superintendent in another district, said he thinks the state needs to add a different requirement to “make the diploma meaningful.”

The growing backlash against high-stakes testing also creates the opportunity for a fresh “conversation about what really matters for high school graduation rates,” Balfanz said. 

While shows that getting good grades and taking rigorous courses might be greater predictors of success in college than a single test score, there are also concerns that no longer reflect subject mastery. 

“This is a huge debate,” Balfanz said. “But, post-pandemic, we do need to revise what we expect of our kids.”

A third measure in Colorado, appeared headed for defeat. 

Despite the growing popularity of such programs with conservative lawmakers, the results continued the trend of voters, when given the chance, rejecting the idea of allowing public funds to pay for students’ tuition at private schools. 

“These bills are super unpopular, even in rural Trump country,” said Joshua Cowen, a Michigan State University professor and outspoken voucher opponent. 

He was particularly surprised by the results in Kentucky, where voters defeated , 65% to 35% even though former President Donald Trump won the presidential contest there by the same margin. The measure would have allowed state funds to pay for students to attend anything other than a traditional public school. “In an election that seems to be turning on ‘What has the government done for my family?,’ a lot of conservative voters in deep rural parts seem to be asking ‘What would vouchers do for my family?’ ”

In Nebraska, a law, passed last year, that created a private school scholarship program. Support Our Schools Nebraska, a union-backed group, led the campaign to get the referendum on the ballot. In Colorado, a state that would create a right to school choice was failing to reach the 55% threshold to win. Criticized for its vague wording, the initiative could pave the way for voucher legislation in the future. 

Like public school supporters in other states, opponents argue that vouchers drain funding from state budgets and are more likely to serve families who never attended traditional schools. In Colorado, Christian homeschooling families because the initiative also acknowledged the rights of students. They viewed that language as a threat to parental rights.

But school choice advocates say families deserve options outside of the public system. 

“The results from these three states are disappointing and discouraging, especially in light of what other states like Florida have shown school choice can do for students and families over the long haul,” said Ben DeGrow, a senior policy director at ExcelinEd, a nonprofit that advocates for private school choice.

“Opponents have once again shown they can unsettle enough voters with rhetoric that ultimately denies students needed educational opportunities.”

Nevertheless, he doesn’t expect the movement to slow down. In addition to Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott and wealthy conservative donors worked hard to elect pro-voucher members to the House, DeGrow said Tennessee and Idaho are also likely states to push for private school choice programs next year. 

While choice initiatives drew significant attention this election year, there were also several other contentious ballot measures affecting education. 

Florida

A measure that would have required school board candidates to state their political party, failed to win 60% of the vote — the required threshold for the measure to pass. Backed by the legislature and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the measure received just 55%, according to unofficial results. 

“Honestly, I thought more people would vote no,” said Sue Woltanski, a school board member in Monroe County, Florida, who has written about the influence of conservative candidates endorsed by DeSantis and Moms for Liberty. “Where I live, people are so tired of the division in the community and seemed to be turned off by the hyper-politicization of school boards in particular.”

But Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, which has focused on culture war issues, like trans students in girls sports and sexually explicit library books, said she didn’t understand why anyone would be opposed to candidates disclosing their political affiliation.

“People want to say, ‘Well, the school board isn’t political,’ but the teachers unions have politicized school board races for years,” she said. ‘Ninety-nine percent of the that teachers unions give go to Democrats. I just think more information is good for voters.”

Massachusetts

Voters approved a proposal, sponsored by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, to relax high school graduation requirements, with a vote of 59% to 51%. Tenth graders would still have to take state exams in English, science and math, but they wouldn’t have to earn a passing score to receive a diploma.

The measure highlighted the debate between opponents of high-stakes testing and those who argue states have lowered the bar for achievement in the aftermath of the pandemic, leaving students less prepared for college. 

“Now watch inequities grow wider,” Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union and a Massachusetts resident, , noting how voters in towns known for high-performing schools rejected the measure. “May the odds be ever in your favor, kids.”

California

Voters approved a $10 billion bond issue — $8.5 billion of which will go to school districts for new construction and renovation projects. Some districts are also likely to use the funds for teacher housing as a way to ease shortages, but they’ll have to come up with local matching funds in order to receive the money.

Voters rejected the last statewide bond issue in 2020, meaning some schools have gone without , but opponents argued it didn’t make sense to spend billions on upgrades when student enrollment is declining.

The following are remaining results:

• With almost 90% saying yes, Arkansas voters overwhelmingly approved that would allow students attending vocational and technical schools to be eligible for the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery. 

• With a vote of 54%, approved a on firearms and ammunition to take effect April 1, 2025. The tax is expected to raise roughly $39 million a year, with $1 million going toward a school violence prevention program, staff training and facility upgrades to improve safety. Another $3 million would expand access to youth behavioral health programs.

• New Mexico voters approved a to fund upgrades and materials for school libraries, as well as early childhood education centers at both the state school for the blind and the school for the deaf.

• , voters approved a measure to increase from 4% to 5% the cap on investment earnings the state can transfer from the State School Fund to education. Local school councils of parents and educators decide how to use the funds. 

A affecting education funding was dropped from the ballot because it wasn’t published in a state newspaper 60 days before the election. The initiative that would have removed a state constitutional requirement that all revenue from income taxes and intangible property, like capital gains and royalty payments, be spent on education, children and people with disabilities. 

The Washington Board of Education has launched a multi-year initiative to rework the state’s high school graduation requirements, arguing that the current standards fall short of “fully preparing all students for success.”

The initiative, “FutureReady,” is part of the Board of Education’s , which was approved by members on Thursday. The board is requesting an additional $273,000 in the upcoming 2025-2027 budget from the Legislature for FutureReady.

The board’s request points to “widespread concern” among students, educators and employers that current graduation requirements don’t prepare students with skills needed in a modern world, such as technology literacy, financial education and cultural understanding.

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“The state risks leaving its students inadequately prepared for the future, with consequences extending well beyond their high school years,” the board’s request warns.

In 2020, only enrolled in college or other postsecondary education within a year of graduating, far below the national average and states with similar economies, like Virginia and Massachusetts. Rates of graduation and readiness for college coursework among certain students are also lagging behind the state’s goals.

Lawmakers have tried to fill some of the gaps, introducing legislation in 2024 to and as graduation requirements. But neither of the bills passed — and the board believes “piecemeal additions could strain the system without considering broader impacts.”

“It’s not about simply tinkering and adding to current requirements,” says . “Instead, it involves taking a comprehensive approach to designing a framework that empowers students with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in a changing world.”

Current requirements are also rigid, complicated and difficult to navigate, in part due to “numerous additions over the past two decades.” That places a greater burden on marginalized students who already face barriers to their education, such as students who are Black, Indigenous or people of color, youth in foster care, refugees and students with disabilities.

The Board of Education expects to propose new graduation requirements to the Legislature in 2027. The new requirements likely won’t take effect until the class of 2031 or later, according to the board’s budget proposal.

Members of the public who are interested in providing feedback or helping the board shape the new requirements can .

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on and .

In , voters will decide whether to preserve or overturn 2023 legislation that created a private school scholarship program. Initiatives in and , if approved, could pave the way for lawmakers to create vouchers or education savings accounts in the future.

Despite past defeats, “school choice is continuing to gain support across the country with every demographic,” said Ben DeGrow, a senior policy director at ExcelinEd, which supports the expansion of private school choice. “We’re only likely to see more states add programs by the end of the decade.”

Over the past two years, several GOP governors and lawmakers have been able to push through education savings accounts, which allow families to use state funds for private school tuition, homeschooling or a combination of programs. Nearly 600,000 students in eight states were enrolled in universal ESA programs in 2023-24, according to , a think tank at Georgetown University. In 2022, only Arizona had a universal program that served about . But it’s unclear if that momentum will continue at the polls in the face of opponents who argue such programs hurt public schools.

11 measures in 9 states

The questions on school choice are among 11 education-related initiatives on the ballot in nine states this November. Other measures likely to drive voters to the polls include a union-led Massachusetts proposal to relax high school graduation requirements and a asking whether school board elections should be officially partisan. A few measures would impact school funding, including a that would provide $8.5 billion to modernize outdated K-12 schools.

But with enrollment in district schools continuing to  decline, the questions about public funds for private schools have attracted the most attention. 

While Colorado offers charter schools, there are few school choice options in Nebraska and Kentucky. Votes in favor of choice in those states would “represent a significant step forward for families in terms of educational opportunity,” DeGrow said.

But all three states have large rural areas, where resistance to vouchers has traditionally . In states like Texas, Republican lawmakers from rural communities have been the fiercest opponents. Some worry ESAs would prompt more families to choose homeschooling and private schools, forcing public schools to close or consolidate. Others argue such programs don’t benefit families in rural areas because there aren’t enough private schools. 

The question is “whether rural voters themselves can be convinced to support vouchers,” said Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.  

Well-funded conservative organizations, like in Colorado and the in Nebraska, have tried to make the case that voters need to pass school choice to keep up with neighboring states offering more education options for families.

While have mobilized against private school choice, “I expect that the money battle will be lopsidedly pro-voucher,” Welner said. “It will be interesting to see how much of an effect that money has in shifting popular opinion.”

In Kentucky, Amendment 2 wouldn’t automatically result in a school voucher program, but  asks voters if they want public funds to pay for education outside of what the law calls a “system of common schools.”

Until now, Kentucky courts have had the final say over whether the state joins the 29 others with at least one school choice program. In 2022, the said a 2021 law creating tax credits for “education opportunity accounts” violated the state constitution. A yes vote on the ballot measure would give the Republican-dominated legislature a “safe, legal path” to pass a school choice program, DeGrow said. 

Supporters like Republican Rep. Jared Bauman say it’s time for the state to catch up with neighbors like Indiana and Ohio that offer parents some form of school choice. But , including Democratic , warn that a voucher plan could cost the state as much as $1.19 billion if it reached a scale similar to that of Florida’s universal program. 

The “common schools” wording of the constitution has also held up efforts to fund charters. Kentucky has had a since 2022, but in December a state court it unconstitutional. 

In Nebraska, where lawmakers passed a $10 million private school scholarship program last year, Support Our Schools Nebraska, a union-led advocacy group, gathered enough signatures this summer to put a veto referendum on the ballot. 

Like public school supporters in other states, opponents argue that such programs are a drain on state budgets and mostly serve families who already pay for private school instead of the neediest students. But Republican state Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, who sponsored the school choice legislation, that students shouldn’t have to attend schools that are failing or can’t meet their needs.  

Finally, in Colorado, a ballot question asks voters if they support adding language to the state constitution that would guarantee children a right to the full array of school choice options — traditional district schools, charters, private schools, open enrollment and homeschooling. 

Some the measure could invite more government oversight into homeschooling, while Welner predicted it would prompt legal challenges “because it’s so vague and yet touches on so many issues.”&�Բ�����;

Bond issues, graduation requirements 

Beyond debates over school choice, several other ballot measures affect both education policy and funding. Here is a brief rundown:

Arkansas 

Since 2009, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has provided over 720,000 college scholarships, totaling $1.2 billion. But students attending vocational and technical schools haven’t been eligible for the awards. The legislature placed on the ballot that would change that. 

California

Almost 40% of California’s public schools fail to meet basic facility standards, according to a from the Public Policy Institute of California. Students often attend schools with unsafe conditions, like gas leaks, faulty electrical systems or structural damage. asks voters to approve a $10 billion bond issue that would provide $8.5 billion for new construction and renovations at district schools, charters and career and technical centers. Local districts would have to provide matching funds. 

After voters rejected a $15 billion bond in 2020, repair projects have piled up, but in addition to renovating schools, districts would also be able to use the funds for . Teachers often can’t afford to live in high-priced parts of the state, like Los Angeles, San Diego and the Bay Area, which creates recruitment and retention challenges for districts in those metro areas. 

An anti-tax organization, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that  the measure doesn’t make sense at a time when the state is losing enrollment and would likely lead to higher property taxes. 

But Public Advocates, which focuses on the needs of low-income students, is for a different reason. They say the measure should include a sliding scale that allots poorer districts a greater share of the funds. 

Colorado

A proposed on firearms and ammunition would take effect April 1, 2025 and raise roughly $39 million a year. Most of the revenue would fund services for victims of gun violence, but $1 million would go into a school security program for violence prevention in schools as well as staff training and facility upgrades to improve safety. Another $3 million would expand access to youth behavioral health programs. 

Rep. Monica Duran, a Democrat who sponsored legislation to get the measure on the ballot, says the tax doesn’t infringe on gun owners’ Second Amendment rights. But gun lobbyists argue that gun and ammunition purchases are already subject to an 11% federal tax. 

Florida 

School board races have become increasingly partisan, especially since the pandemic, when issues like mask mandates and disputes over curriculum split communities in half. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis further politicized school board races in 2022 when he endorsed a slate of 30 candidates, 25 of whom won that year in the general election.

Amendment 1, which the legislature placed on the ballot last year, would officially change the Florida constitution to end nonpartisan races and require candidates to state their political party. 

Sixty percent of voters would need to approve the measure for it to pass. If they do, the new provision would apply to elections in 2026. Opponents of the idea argue that education issues have grown overly divisive and that partisan races would who aren’t registered party members. Proponents say the requirement would increase transparency. 

One former Polk County school board member thinks there won’t be enough support for the measure to reach the 60% threshold. 

“I think voters here are actually very tired of the school drama,” said Billy Townsend. “While they tend to vote GOP in state offices, [voters] also tend to prefer non-partisan offices locally. I would bet it falls short of 50%.”&�Բ�����;

Massachusetts

Decisions over academic expectations are generally left up to state and local school boards. But in Massachusetts, voters will whether high school students should still have to pass state exams in English, math and science to graduate.

The , the state’s largest teachers union, led the effort to get the referendum on the ballot. The union argues that teachers spend too much class time preparing students for the tests and that the requirement hasn’t achieved the results testing proponents want. Under their alternative, students would have to master state standards to graduate.

Opponents, however, say scrapping the requirement would ultimately hurt students and leave them for college and careers. They’ve launched a $250,000 to convince voters to reject the measure. 

New Mexico

New Mexico voters have a strong track record of for capital improvement projects on education facilities. Since 1995, they’ve approved that have been on the ballot. This year, they’ll vote on a that would fund, among other items, furniture, equipment and materials at school libraries, as well as early childhood education centers at both the state school for the blind and the school for the deaf.

Utah

Utah voters will decide on two school funding measures, both placed on the ballot by the legislature. The asks voters to remove a state constitutional requirement that all revenue from income taxes and intangible property, like capital gains and royalty payments, be spent on education, children and people with disabilities.  If the measure passes, the law would only say that the state must provide a “framework” for funding schools.

The state teachers union was initially neutral on the change, but now opposes it. Lawmakers say revenue is up and this change would make budgeting easier.

The measure asks voters to increase from 4% to 5% the cap on investment earnings the state can transfer from the State School Fund to education. Local of parents and educators decide how to spend the funds for purchases like library books or an extra teaching assistant position. Last year, the state distributed over $100 million from the fund.

Lawyers for Civil Rights and Massachusetts Advocates for Children filed Sept. 18 against Saugus Public Schools seeking the release of records around the district’s admissions policy. The legal advocates claim the policy, which mandates that families fill out the town census among other requirements, disproportionately affects immigrant and other vulnerable student groups. Saugus district officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Just weeks after Massachusetts attorneys flagged two school districts for allegedly denying newcomer students their legal right to an education, researchers examining Oregon and Michigan state data found that English learners were less likely than other students to be enrolled in the core classes they need to graduate. 

Both of these issues were called out in a June undercover investigation by The 74 that revealed rampant enrollment discrimination against older immigrant students. These newer findings show many such barriers remain in various parts of the country. 

Boston-based and asked the state attorney general’s office on Aug. 28 to investigate Saugus Public Schools for practices they say single out immigrant children: The school system currently bars entry to students whose families did not complete the annual town census. 

While local census data collection is in Massachusetts, lawyers say it can’t be tied to student enrollment. 

“With school starting in Saugus this week and the School Committee digging in its heels, it is imperative that the Attorney General intervene,” Erika Richmond Walton, an attorney with Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement last week. “No child in Massachusetts should be denied the right to an education based on exclusionary policies.”&�Բ�����;

In an earlier interview, attorneys said that the district also applies overly-stringent residency and proof-of-identity requirements that make it difficult for children — especially immigrants — to register, violating their rights under federal and state law. 

The attorney general’s office said in a statement that “it is in touch with the Saugus School District regarding their school admissions policy,” noting that “federal and state law gives all students equal access to a public education, regardless of immigration status.”

Saugus Public Schools, 11 miles north of Boston, served , up from 2,297 two years earlier. In the 2023-24 school year, English was not the first language of and 13% of students were   The district was in the 2022-23 school year, slightly higher than the state at 24.2%. 

The 74’s enrollment  investigation also found that some school personnel who were willing to admit an older immigrant student wanted to severely limit his participation, including allowing him to take only ESL classes. Researchers in Oregon looked at the practice they call in their own state and Michigan. 

Analyzing statewide data from the 2013-14 to 2018-19 school years, they found that just 55% of English learners in Oregon were enrolled in all the required core classes compared to 69% of those students who had graduated from the English learner program and 67% who were never enrolled in it.

In Michigan, 66% of English learners were enrolled in all of the core classes compared to 71% of former English learner students and those who were never enrolled in the program, according to the most recently available statewide data from the 2011-12 to 2014-15 school years. Under , public schools must ensure that English learners can “participate meaningfully and equally in educational programs,” including having access to grade-level curricula so they can be promoted and graduate.

Researchers said race and socioeconomics were critical factors in exclusionary tracking, noting that English learners in Oregon were more likely to take standalone English language development classes and live in poverty than those in Michigan. 

“The scope of the problem is pretty large,” said Ilana Umansky, an associate professor at the University of Oregon who co-wrote the report. “It’s so important that kids can get through high school and graduate with a regular diploma.”

Immigrant advocate Adam Strom called the actions in all three states an outrage.

​​”Exclusionary tracking and denial of registration for immigrant students not only violate their legal rights,” he said, “but also rob the entire school community of the rich cultural and intellectual contributions these students offer.”

Unwelcome to America

Senior reporter Jo Napolitano spent nearly a year and a half calling 630 high schools around the country trying to enroll a 19-year-old newcomer whose education had been interrupted after the ninth grade. Napolitano posed as the student’s aunt and told schools “Hector Guerrero” had recently arrived in their district from Venezuela with limited English skills. 

Hector was turned away 330 times, including more than 200 denials in the 35 states and the District of Columbia where he had a legal right to attend based on his age.

Those who refused our test student predicted that he would not graduate, a factor that should not have played a part in such a decision, several state education department officials said. Thirteen states and three major cities have now said they are taking action to bolster newcomer students’ educational rights as a result of The 74’s reporting.

Three schools in Massachusetts, where students have a right to attend until age 21, denied our test student and two more said they were likely to. Education officials there told The 74 last month they would call those districts to discuss the findings, but planned no other statewide corrective measures.

Saugus schools Superintendent Michael Hashem’s secretary, Dianne Vargas, handles enrollment in the North Shore district. She told The 74 last week that are lawful and that she’s in regular contact with the state education department and state attorney general’s office. 

She maintained that the requirement that “(f)amilies who move to Saugus must complete the Town of Saugus census” to be eligible to register their children is waived for incoming immigrant students and that the rules were in place before August 2023, when the attorneys say they were adopted.

But, she said, the district does require other forms of paperwork — all meant to protect these students’ welfare.

“We want to make sure they are with a parent or guardian — that they actually have someone who is caring for them so we don’t have doubling up and people aren’t passing children around,” she said. “We have a good amount of scattered living or sheltered students who are refugees or migrants and they cannot be left without guardianship. We have a translator … we have everything up to date and make sure these people feel welcome.”

She said her office asks for — but does not require — a birth certificate and medical records. But Diana I. Santiago, a senior attorney and director at Massachusetts Advocates for Children, said Saugus’s enrollment policies effectively barred at least two immigrant families from enrolling their children in a timely manner, resulting in “substantial time” out of school. 

The enrollment policy warns that parents, guardians or any others who “violate or assist in violation of this policy by submitting false documentation, aiding, abetting or conspiring to admit a child as a student of Saugus Public Schools, shall be subject to all applicable criminal and civil penalties.”&�Բ�����;

It also pledges that if a student’s family moves out of the district during the school year, that student’s “immigration records required by law, shall be transferred immediately to the school in the city or town where they are residing.”

It’s unclear why the district would be in possession of a student’s immigration records. Schools cannot, under federal law, turn away students based on their , although conservative forces are now looking  . At an Aug. 30 Moms for Liberty gathering, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said the country is “being poisoned” and that immigrant students are

Closing doors

Santiago described the language used throughout Saugus’s enrollment policy — including terms like “legal residents” and “immigration paperwork” — as coded and meant to target the city’s growing immigrant community. 

“It’s just inserted there as another way to try to keep students out, especially immigrant students,” she said. 

Massachusetts is generally considered a national leader in education. The state attorney general’s on its website said it’s critical they “ensure that all children residing in their jurisdictions have equal access to public education” by allowing them to enroll and attend school without regard to race, national origin, or immigration or citizenship status. They must also avoid information requests “that have the purpose or effect of discouraging or denying access to school” based on those factors.  

In another Bay State case that set off alarms in late July, Norfolk Town Administrator said a change in the state’s emergency shelter system meant children temporarily housed at one location “will not be enrolled in Norfolk Public Schools or the King Philip Regional School District.” After pushback from immigrant advocates, he . 

The 74’s investigation revealed a litany of ways that districts make enrollment arduous or unwelcoming for immigrant students. A principal in Green River, Wyoming, said our test student could be admitted but “wouldn’t get to participate in extracurriculars,” while a Caldwell, Idaho, principal said he would “maybe” allow him to enroll in math and science classes, but not English or history.

The Oregon researchers said the practice of keeping English learners out of core classes is significant and undermines , a pivotal 1974 Supreme Court case that requires districts to  

Umansky and co-author Karen D. Thompson, associate professor at Oregon State University, have researching educational inequity for English learners.

Thompson said exclusionary tracking goes against high schools’ mission to graduate students college and career ready. , they said, can boost student access. 

“We want students who are classified as English learners to be able to learn and thrive and have all of the opportunities they can,” she said. “If their access to core content is restricted, some future doors might be closed to them.”&�Բ�����;

As state education officials pump the brakes on a , concerns from Hoosier teachers, students and families are mounting over the proposed graduation requirements.

With the deadline fast approaching for the State Board of Education (SBOE) to , state leaders are asking for more statewide feedback — including what’s expected to be a lengthy public forum scheduled for next week.

Although the original plan was for the state board to vote on the new diplomas in September, Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner that — in response to feedback received already — the process is slowing down, at least somewhat.

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Jenner said the board will hear a revised draft proposal at the August meeting, followed by a second round of feedback, including a public hearing, before the board releases a final proposal.

Under a passed by Indiana legislators in 2023, the state must adopt new diploma requirements by December.

Schools could choose to opt in and start offering the new diplomas as early as the 2025-26 academic year. The new diplomas will take effect for all Hoosier students beginning with the Class of 2029, who are entering eighth grade this fall.

, according to state officials, is maximized “flexibility” for students to personalize learning pathways and experiences, including with college courses taken while still in high school, as well as the ability to count internships, apprenticeships, military experience and other work-based learning toward their graduation requirements.

While the plan answers repeated calls for the state’s curriculum to better prepare students for post-high school employment and boost the state’s declining college-going rate, the draft plan has garnered increasing criticism for its exclusion of certain course requirements, like those in history, foreign language and fine arts.

Some educators are also worried about plans to eliminate the current Academic Honors diploma, linked to college-going.

What’s proposed, so far?

Currently, Hoosier students can work toward one of numerous diploma designations, including the general, Core 40, academic honors, or technical honors options. Some schools additionally offer the International Baccalaureate diploma, which is dependent on successful completion of specific assessments and examinations during grades 11 and 12.

State education officials conceded that the existing diploma system is outdated and confusing for both parents and students. Jenner previously said it especially lacks options for students to get hands-on training or earn high-value credentials, given the various course requirements. The move now, however, is to be less “course-obsessed.”

As laid out in the proposal, Indiana’s future diplomas would include the “Indiana GPS Diploma” — a more flexible, personalized version of the current Core 40 diploma — and the “Indiana GPS Diploma Plus.”

Three transcript seals added to their diplomas would allow students to show they’re ready for enrollment, employment or enlistment.

Ron Sandlin, the state education department’s senior director of school performance and transformation, said the proposed seals would focus on readiness — but not eligibility. Each seal track would have required courses, and students could earn multiple seals and apply seals to both diploma types.

Students, parents, teachers push back

But students and parents expressed worries about the model during last week’s SBOE meeting, which lasted more than four hours.

That included a trio of Hamilton Southeastern High School students who pleaded for state education leaders to keep fine arts courses as part of the diplomas’ foundational skills requirements.

All rising seniors and members of the high school’s marching band, each highlighted the benefits of music education and asked that marching band, jazz band, symphony, orchestra, drama and choir be considered co-curricular classes — which could count towards foundational graduation requirements — rather than extracurricular activities.

“I can vouch that the skills I learned through playing my instrument every day during marching camp actually gave me more resources and time to grow my abilities compared to my classmates that did not participate in those extra activities,” said Kayla Wease, a 17-year-old senior at Hamilton Southeastern.

Dylan Balka, another of the students, further asked the board to count band activities as work-based learning experiences under the new diploma requirements for juniors and seniors.

“Without the fine arts program,” he said, “I wouldn’t have as strong of a dedication for anything else in my life.”

Separately ,numerous foreign language teachers have spoken against the lack of credits awarded to students who take foreign language courses under the new proposal. Many colleges require foreign language credits or entry.

And parents like Leslie Wells, whose two children attend Perry Township schools, said they’re concerned that requirements under the “GPS Diploma Plus” won’t be attainable for many students.

“Dual credit AP honors courses require more work inside and outside the classroom,” Wells said at last week’s SBOE meeting. “Adding work-based learning requirements on top of that makes it impossible. … If there’s concern about forcing non-college-bound students to take college-ready courses, we should have an equal concern about forcing college-bound students to fulfill these workplace learning requirements.”

Rep. Sheila Klinker, D-Lafayette, additionally called for board members to create diplomas that prepare non-college-bound students, but still offer an equivalent to the current academic honors diploma for those who want to pursue higher education.

Doing so, she said, ensures those students are “competitive applicants for university admissions and prospective scholarships.”

“Our state desperately needs well-rounded, comprehensive diplomas that encourage our youth to be critical thinkers. Students who want to work after graduation must be introduced to skilled trade apprenticeships and employment opportunities. However, we must continue to foster excitement about the arts,” Klinker, a former teacher, said in a statement.

“I fear our smaller, public high schools will be forced to cut some arts and humanities classes. They are severely underfunded, and if these classes are not required, they are on the cutting block,” she continued. “Let’s give our Hoosier youth the best chance in life by inspiring them to be professionally ambitious and passionately creative.”

How Hoosiers can weigh in

Hoosiers are invited to offer a first round of through July 30. So far, the state has received more than 6,300 digital feedback submissions.

An in-person public hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. the same day in Conference Rooms Four and Five of the Indiana Government Center South in Indianapolis.

SBOE officials emphasized earlier this month that all comments given online will be reviewed and weighed equally as those provided in-person.

Rep. Sue Errington, D-Muncie, has additionally scheduled a town hall meeting for Friday to discuss the restructuring of Indiana’s high school diploma system.

The meeting, open to the public, will run from 6 to 8 p.m. at Kennedy Library, located at 1700 W. McGalliard Road in Muncie.

In a news release, Errington said the proposed plan “would completely erase” the state’s existing diplomas and reduce requirements for multiple subjects — “entirely restructuring high school education as we know it.”

She cautioned that there is no academic honors diploma under the plan and said neither of the proposed diplomas’ baseline requirements meet admissions requirements for Ball State University — located in her district — or other in-state universities.

“I have received an outpouring of concern from House District 34 parents and educators about the proposed diploma redesign,” Errington said in a statement. “I hope to see you at a public listening session so you can get your questions answered and share your thoughts on the proposal with stakeholders.”

Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn, D-Fishers, is also holding two public listening sessions for district constituents to learn about and discuss the proposal. One focused on Carmel Clay Schools and Washington Township Schools took place Monday evening, and another — from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on July 29, in the Hamilton East Public Library in Fishers — will center around the Hamilton Southeastern School Corporation.

“I have received an outpouring of concern from House District 32 parents and educators about the proposed diploma redesign,” Garcia Wilburn said in a news release. “People move to House District 32 for our great public schools that set students up for success in life, success in higher education and success in their careers. The focus of this plan on career training at the expense of rigorous academic coursework is threatening to derail our district public high schools’ track record of success.”

Graduation season is typically a time for celebrating the success of students making it through their education programs.

For some Indigenous students, part of that celebration includes having tribal regalia or objects of cultural significance as part of their cap and gown during the graduation ceremony.

In Arizona, Indigenous students are protected under state law. In 2021, then-Gov. Doug Ducey signed  into law, barring public schools from preventing Indigenous students from wearing traditional tribal regalia or objects of cultural significance at graduation ceremonies.

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Not all states have similar laws to protect Indigenous students. , but it’s now unclear if that applies to a case garnering attention in Farmington, New Mexico.

On May 13, Genesis White Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, was standing for the national anthem alongside her graduating class at the Farmington High School graduation ceremony when two unidentified school faculty members approached her to confiscate her graduation cap.

, White Bull is seen being instructed to remove her graduation cap, which was embellished with an eagle plume and beaded around the rim.

Brenda White Bull, Genesis’ mother, shared the experience with the Navajo Nation Council and reported that school officials later cut the plume from her daughter’s cap using scissors.

The Navajo Nation Council stated in a press release that Brenda emphasized the sacred significance of the plume, which symbolizes achievement and cultural identity, marking Genesis’ transition into new phases of her life.

The Arizona Mirror contacted the family for an interview, but the family did not respond before publication.

Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley called Farmington High School’s actions “belittling, humiliating, and demeaning to the student and her family.

“There is no place for this type of behavior in our educational systems,” Curley said in a press release. “The school officials owe an apology to the student and her family.”

Farmington Municipal Schools, which oversees Farmington High School,  in response to the incident.

“During the event, a student’s beaded cap was exchanged for a plain one. The feather was returned intact to the family during the ceremony,” Farmington Municipal Schools wrote in the statement. “The beaded cap was returned after graduation concluded.”

Farmington Municipal Schools referred to the district’s protocols, which state that graduation caps and gowns can not be altered, per the .

The handbook does not contain policy language stating any exceptions to these rules. However, the school’s statement noted that students could choose their clothing attire, which included traditional attire to be worn under the graduation cap and gown, regalia, stoles, and feathers in their tassels.

“Students were informed throughout the school year and immediately before graduation of the protocol, including that beaded caps were not allowed,” the statement read. “This standard process helps us set student attire during graduations.”

“While the staff involved were following district guidelines, we acknowledge this could have been handled differently and better,” the statement read. “Moving forward, we will work to refine our processes at the school level.”

Farmington Municipal Schools stated that the district is also committed to exploring policies that allow for additional appropriate cultural elements in student attire. Indigenous students comprise nearly 34% of the school district’s population.

“School officials across the country need to be reminded who the first Americans are and whose land they inhabit,” Curley said in a press release. “No student in any school should be prohibited from wearing regalia that signifies their cultural and spiritual beliefs.”

New Mexico passed that might protect students against the Farmington schools district policy.

However, the legal pathway is unclear according to responses from spokespeople in the governor’s offices, state education department, and even lawmakers who wrote the recent law.

Each acknowledged that they were reviewing the law and could only give an official opinion once that was completed. Requests for comment were made to the New Mexico Department of Justice but were not returned in time for publication.

 (D-Albuquerque), who co-sponsored the law, said the legislation stemmed from the national Crown Act push that targeted to stop policies that discriminate against hair style and texture, with a significant tilt against African Americans.

New Mexico’s version was written from the views of the Native American cultures present throughout the state, Pope said, and the bill included .

“We wanted to make sure that we included cultural and religious headdresses to be even more inclusive than your hair alone,” he said. “And what I think is important in that language, when we look at Indigenous cultures, feathers are so cherished and protected and it is part of who they are.”

It’s unclear now if the law will provide White Bull support for any legal action she could take against Farmington Municipal Schools District.

‘It broke my heart’

After footage of White Bull’s graduation experience spread on social media, it sparked an outpouring of support from Indigenous people and communities across the country.

Navajo Nation leaders have voiced their support for White Bull and called for schools to support an Indigenous student’s right to wear regalia during their graduation ceremonies, saying denying it is a violation of their rights.

“It broke my heart,” Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Crotty told the Arizona Mirror when she learned what happened to the student.

Crotty said graduations are meant to be one of the happiest moments of a student’s life, and White Bull’s experience was tarnished by having something so important taken away from her.

“That’s so traumatic and not the best way to approach these situations when it comes to our Native students,” Crotty said. “In a day of celebration, just for her to be attacked like that.”

Crotty said the incident has been reported to the Nation Human Rights Commission, which investigates discrimination within border towns.

Farmington borders the Navajo Nation, and there is against Indigenous people living or visiting the city.

In April 1974, three white Farmington High School students brutally murdered four Navajo men as part of a practice locals called “Indian rolling.”

In response to the murders, Navajo and other Indigenous people held protests in the city of Farmington denouncing the pervasive racism and bigotry of the community.

Due to escalating tensions in Farmington, the New Mexico Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights launched a study of the relationships between the city, San Juan County and the Navajos living in the community and on the Navajo Nation.

The committee concluded that Indigenous people in almost every area suffer from injustice and maltreatment, . They recommended that city officials and San Juan County officials, in conjunction with Navajo leaders, work together to develop a plan of action to improve the treatment of Navajos living in the border areas of northwestern New Mexico.

The advisory committee conducted another report 30 years later and found that, while race relations may have somewhat improved in the area, racism is still an issue within the city of Farmington.

“There is a lack of understanding of how Native students identify themselves and celebrate themselves,” Crotty said.

She said that it is time to move beyond having conversations about cultural sensitivity for Native students, mainly because incidents like this keep occurring.

“That’s why we want to support mom and the family,” Crotty said. “She does want the school to be accountable, and she does want some sort of apology.”

Crotty said the staff’s actions at Farmington High School were inappropriate, and immediate action is needed rather than the school trying to justify what happened.

“The cultural identity of all Native American students attending Farmington High School are protected under the ,” she said, adding that what happened was a clear violation of the student’s rights.

“As we move forward in addressing this issue, we will be meeting with the school board and administration,” Crotty added.

In New Mexico, the law passed in 2021 is directed specifically to local school districts, but it does not allow the New Mexico Public Education Department to issue any statewide order on local issues, such as what students can wear at graduation ceremonies.

New Mexico’s 89 school districts decide on those policies, which is why other Indigenous students across the state have different experiences with graduation attire.

New Mexico’s Public Education Secretary, Dr. Aresenio Romero, offered support for White Bull but noted that the issue is the responsibility of the local district.

“I expect the Farmington Superintendent and school district to reevaluate their graduation policies,” Romero said. “I remain committed to promulgating tribal sovereignty and to respecting tribal cultural customs and practices.”

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued a statement Friday saying that it was unacceptable that a student was reprimanded for representing their culture during a time of celebration.

“I appreciate that the Farmington schools acknowledge that they could have handled this situation better and that their policy may be too restrictive,” she added. “However, it shouldn’t have required the student raising this issue for a school to recognize its lack of inclusivity.”

Navajo Nation First Lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren released a statement supporting Indigenous graduating students who wear their cultural and traditional regalia during graduation.

“We stand with our Native graduates this graduation season and their decision to wear their traditional tribal regalia or objects of cultural significance, including eagle feathers, eagle plumes, and beaded graduation caps,” Blackwater-Nygren said in . “Our graduates and families take immense pride in what they choose to wear on graduation day.”

Blackwater Nygren was a guest speaker at the Farmington High School graduation, but she said she was unaware of what occurred until after the graduation.

“I am deeply disappointed that this happened at a school where we have many Navajo and Native graduates,” she said. “I hope the school learns from this experience and can take corrective measures.”

Blackwater-Nygren said that, for many Indigenous students, deciding what to wear goes far beyond simply deciding what color dress or shoes to wear. For some Indigenous students, it is a day for them to wear their traditional regalia proudly.

“Our regalia reminds us of how far we’ve come as a people; it shows our pride in our culture and how we chose to identify ourselves as Native people,” she said. “Some graduates are the first in their families to graduate or are only one of a few high school graduates in the family. A beaded cap further signifies this symbol of achievement, accomplishment and Native resilience.”

Blackwater-Nygren is familiar with this issue because, as an Arizona State Representative, she helped pass  through the legislature.

“As graduation season continues, I hope all schools will respect the decision of our Native students to wear their traditional regalia and objects of cultural significance,” Blackwater-Nygren said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Source New Mexico maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Shaun Griswold for questions: info@sourcenm.com. Follow Source New Mexico on and .

It’s graduation weekend for North Dakota’s public colleges, with the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University accounting for more than half of the degrees and certificates to be handed out.

Which of the nine remaining schools would be next in line? If you guessed Bismarck State College, you get an A.

UND accounts for about 33% of the graduates and NDSU 28%, according to 2023 figures. Bismarck State accounts for 9.6% of program completions.

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Not all the program completions mean a two-year or four-year degree.

Bismarck State offers a list of certificate programs that are less than one year, such as mobile app development, as well as  two-year programs such as nursing and a few four-year programs.

She said that in the last year alone, out of the 210 academic programs that came through the North Dakota University System office and were approved by the State Board of Higher Education, 142 out of those were certificate programs.

“Some of that is just campuses looking at programs, for example, an associate degree, and thinking about how to bundle, how to repackage existing programs into smaller sort of increments that students might complete as a certificate, possibly even as a student in high school,” Johnson said.

While the number of graduates from North Dakota colleges and universities has declined almost 6% in the past five years, the number of program completions is down only about 3%, with some students completing multiple degrees or certificates.

Johnson looked at data from 2019 through 2023, the last year of complete data on program completions that includes fall, spring and summer graduates.

While the 11 public colleges are having their graduations either Friday or Saturday this weekend, Johnson said the data for the 2024 class isn’t finalized just yet.

She said the graduation trend aligns with the enrollment trend.

A factor in recruiting students is the strong job market. The unemployment rate in North Dakota was at just 2% as of March.

The number of graduates for the spring semester, as compiled by the NDUS office, are:

• North Dakota State University – 1,988
• University of North Dakota – 1,896
• Bismarck State College – 903
• North Dakota State College of Science – 660
• Minot State University – 385
• Dickinson State University – 224
• Dakota College at Bottineau – 179
• Lake Region State College – 145
• Mayville State University –  138
• Williston State College – 136
• Valley City State University – 119

Many of the certificate programs are aimed at filling specific needs in the workforce, such as meat cutting at North Dakota State College of Science and Dickinson State University.

Some are designed to help professionals acquire or maintain a license.

“Sometimes teachers will come back and get a certificate, for example, working with individuals on the autism spectrum, because that was something they didn’t have when they went through college,” Johnson said. “But maybe they’ve changed jobs, or they’re trying to have some additional job responsibilities, so these certificates nicely complement those without having to return to get an entire two year or four year degree in these very specific areas.”

Other certifications may be for personal enjoyment or a side business.

“You’ll see photography and digital design, and those two meet the needs of the community from a different angle,” Johnson said.

On his first day in office, Gov. Jeff Landry cut off an alternative graduation route for Louisiana high school seniors who fail the state’s academic progress exam.

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) narrowly approved new rules last June for students who fall short on the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) test needed to graduate. In October, the state House Education Committee rejected the policy, leading then-Gov. John Bel Edwards to in November. As a result, BESE put the new rules into place last month.

Technically, the state Senate Education Committee could have taken up the issue late last year, but it was left for the new governor and legislators to decide. On Monday, Landry issued an executive order to “veto” the alternative graduation standards.

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In the order, Landry noted “the LEAP test is aligned with the academic standards established by the (Louisiana) Department of Education and approved by BESE” and a state law approved in 2021 “provides an alternative means of graduation for students with an exceptionality.”

The alternative standards could “introduce subjective criteria into the graduation process and lower the standards to receive a high school diploma,” the governor wrote. “…(I)t is in the best interest of our State to ensure that students are adequately prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce by meeting minimum standards of proficiency in core subjects.”

Supporters of the alternative graduation standards argued a failed LEAP test penalizes a senior who has otherwise performed well enough to earn a diploma.

“Education research illustrates that Louisiana’s current policy of denying students a diploma based on the results of a standardized test does not reflect best practices,” Edwards wrote after he rejected the House committee vote in November. “This proposed rule brings Louisiana in line with national norms and research. While standardized tests can be useful, this proposed rule will provide teachers with greater ability to meet the needs of individual students …”

BESE is unlikely to reconsider the matter now that new members have been seated. They include a conservative majority among its eight elected members and three of Landry’s appointees.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on and .

At the first State Board of Education meeting of 2024 this week, Chair Eric Davis made comments regarding the work public schools are doing to overcome challenges created and exacerbated by the pandemic.

“Our students’ challenges around attendance, mental health, and learning are interconnected and mutually reinforcing,” Davis said. “So they require a holistic and integrated response. I urge all of us to focus our energies on actions and solutions that complete these challenges — ever in service of our students and the educators in our public schools.”

Davis said the recovery gap remains wide and may feel wider on top of existing equity gaps, but called on those listening to remain hopeful.

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“Honestly facing these brutal realities has the potential to manifest within us feelings of dejection and of being overwhelmed. But let’s find strength in remembering that those who came before us faced even greater challenges, and they instilled in us the spirit to overcome and to leave this a better place for future generations,” Davis said. “And we can set aside our differences and work together for the common good.”

This week’s meeting also included a report on the pandemic’s impact on North Carolina’s schools, unanimous approval of a temporary rule for three-year high school graduation policy, and proposed adoption of new temporary school athletics rules which, among other things, bar transgender athletes from participating in the sport that most closely aligns with their gender.

Year-over-year report

The state budget provided funds for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to partner with for a of student learning before, during, and after the pandemic. The analysis measures students’ standardized test scores from 2013 to 2023.

North Carolina remains one of the first states to conduct such an analysis, said Jeni Corn, director of research and evaluation for DPI.

“Tracking academic recovery across a decade – spanning from 2013 to 2023 – is something that has enabled our agency to chart a roadmap out of the pandemic and put our students on the path to recovery,” state Superintendent Catherine Truitt said in a press release. “While there is more work to be done, our agency’s Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration has worked closely with school leaders to help them design recovery programs and strategically target resources based on this data. North Carolina’s students are resilient, and I know we will continue to see improvements with time.”

The found achievement in standardized testing before the pandemic was generally stable. In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, all assessment results evaluated except for English II showed a sharp downward trend.

The next year, however, most assessment results showed improvement, though many did not meet a recovery threshold. By 2023, most assessments continued to improve, and the third-grade reading EOG and the English II EOC have exceeded the recovery threshold, emerging above the pre-pandemic trend.

John White, vice president of SAS EVAAS for K-12, called the positive trend for third-grade reading results a “bright spot.”

“That’s a very positive story, a very positive subject and grade,” White said.

Achievement in math assessments was harder hit by the pandemic than that in reading assessments, the report found. Individual results varied greatly across schools in the state, according to the report.

White said the data could help others understand the huge impact the pandemic left on learning while also showing the recovery process.

Three-year high school graduation

The General Assembly’s 2023 budget requires the Board to make a path accessible to students across the state. Students may apply with their public school unit to graduate early by completing a request form. Unless the student is emancipated or over the age of 18, the form must be signed by the student’s parent or guardian.

Read more on the three-year graduation requirements and discussion on the matter .

Changes to school athletics

The Board’s proposed for adoption new temporary for interscholastic sports this week. The new rules are in accordance with passed last year that would require school sports team to be based on sex assigned at birth, among other things.

Other rules relate to administration of athletes, student health and safety, the appeal process of final decisions, penalty rules, and more.

The Board is required to enact these temporary rules by the 2024-25 school year and expects to adopt them at their March meeting.

Other important happenings:

• The Board approved temporary rules for parental concern hearings, as required by , better known as the Parents’ Bill of Rights. Read more about the rules .
• The Board heard a presentation on , a nonprofit organization that allows schools to benefit students through providing learning on fields in technology, such as artificial intelligence or cybersecurity ​.
• Board members approved updates that clarify procedures relating to the , in which certain public school districts receive charter-like flexibilities.
• The board held discussion, but took no action, on authorizing Moreland University and Kipp North Carolina, a charter school, as an Educator Preparation Program.
• The Board submitted two reports to the General Assembly on and a study for
• The Board received a 2023 School Mental Health Policy report.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

, which relies largely on recent findings from outside research groups and the federal government, warns that on just about every indicator that matters — basic skills, college going, mental health and more — the pandemic has set older students back.

“Time is running out for these kids,” said Robin Lake, director of , a research organization at Arizona State University. “Many have already exited the K-12 system, either by graduating or essentially disappearing on us. Too many kids still are missing — we don’t know if they’ve dropped out or where they’ve gone.”

Outside researchers who study these students said the fears are justified. In response, Lake and others are proposing a raft of reforms, including extending “gap years” to any high school graduates who need time to catch up — as well as a new commitment to reforming high school so it works for more students. 

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona acknowledged the slow pace of academic turnaround, calling it “appalling and unacceptable.”

“It’s like as a country we’ve normalized those gaps,” he said in separate remarks to reporters Tuesday,

Cardona spoke just before the department unveiled new efforts to spur pandemic recovery, including $50 million in competitive grants for literacy and higher expectations on districts to track and reverse chronic absenteeism. The department also released new data showing that roughly 187,000 tutors and mentors have signed up through its National Partnership for Student Success — bringing it closer to its goal of recruiting 250,000 adults to help students get back on track by 2025.

‘Insidious and hidden’

As of this fall, researchers said, about 13.5 million students in four high school graduating classes have been affected by the pandemic.

CRPE first issued its “State of the American Student” report in September 2022, saying pandemic school closures in 2020 and 2021 led to “unprecedented academic setbacks” for American students that made pre-existing inequalities and the nation’s youth mental health crisis worse.

A year later, CRPE says, students are still struggling in many areas. They point to record-low math and reading scores on the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress for fourth- and eighth-grade students — in both grades, one in three can’t read at even the “basic” achievement level.

And missed more than 10% of school days during the 2021-22 school year, twice as many as in previous years. More than reported “stunted behavioral and social-emotional development” in students because of the pandemic, researchers note.

But they say schools should pay extra attention to older students, many of whom lost critical instruction time during the pandemic. 

The pandemic, Lake said, “is continuing to derail learning throughout K-12. But what we came away with was that the derailment is looking a little bit more insidious and hidden, in some ways. That is true especially for older students.”

The , for instance, needs 7.4 months of schooling to catch up to pre-pandemic levels in reading, and 9.1 months of schooling in math, according to recent assessments.

Last year’s NAEP scores showed that 30% of eighth graders performed “” in reading; 38% were in math. At the same time, just 2% of students received at school, which Lake called “a massive missed opportunity.”&�Բ�����;

In a few places, researchers noted, the pandemic knocked older students off track, as in Washington state, where 14 percent of public high school students received at least during the 2020-2021 school year.

Even college-bound high school students are underperforming: The on the ACT college admission test last year was 19.8, they noted, the lowest since 1991.

Researchers also noted that, overall, college going is down: Between 2019 and 2023, the U.S. higher education system lost an estimated .

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in advance of the report’s release, Lake said recent data on college are “extremely concerning.”

She called for the development of what she calls a “New American High School” that abandons academic tracking and standardized diplomas for a system that helps each student “understand their own conception of a good life” through knowledge and skills. It would also help them more easily change course if needed.

In the report, Lake noted several promising new models, including Colorado’s , designed to help rural districts create career-relevant learning experiences aligned to the needs and aspirations of local economies.

She also highlighted Seckinger High School in Gwinnett County, Georgia, a planned artificial intelligence-themed high school that will offer a college prep curriculum “taught through the lens of artificial intelligence.” Students will also be able to pursue an education in developing AI, she said. 

A gap year for struggling students

Lake proposed that high schools and community colleges consider a new kind of post-high school “gap year” designed to help struggling high school graduates get back on track academically and prepare for college and careers. 

“Gap years are oftentimes known for serving as a time for exploration for more advantaged kids,” she said. “Let’s change that.”

The idea is still in development, she said, but could be developed quickly.

“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but we need to get going,” she said.

While high school graduation rates are rising, the researchers said, so is grade inflation — 90% of parents believe their child is actually above grade level in reading and math, according to a March 2023 , making it likely that many students are exiting the K-12 system unprepared for college and careers.

Outside experts who study education systems and secondary education said CRPE’s alarm over the data is justified.

“There’s going to be a long tail of the pandemic,” said Robert Balfanz, a scholar who studies high school as co-director of the at Johns Hopkins University.

He said a key problem from the pandemic is that many students were forced into virtual learning at key points in their education: while making the leap to more challenging reading, for instance, or diving into Algebra or calculus. “Kids that miss core transitional learning, I think, are almost hit twice,” he said. “They have that same amount of learning loss. But you could argue in some ways it was even more strategic of a loss because those are such key building blocks.”

He noted that the best predictor of whether a student will earn a college degree is if they earned “decent grades in challenging courses.” But if they don’t get access to these or don’t learn foundational material, “that’s a problem.”

Unequal access to such coursework, Balfanz said, can push students out of advanced classes. 

He is concerned that during the pandemic, many students who “officially took calculus” or other advanced courses virtually may not have gotten all of the material required. “And those kids are probably already in college.”

In the paper, researchers lamented that our K-12 system “leaves to chance” nearly every aspect of the transition from high school to college and careers, from students discovering their interests and talents to selecting a career pathway aligned to them. 

And few students ever get guidance on how to change careers and find new training or postsecondary opportunities when their interests and priorities shift.

Balfanz said the decline in “postsecondary momentum” could be the result of many factors, including the high cost of college, students who don’t feel well-prepared and a labor market that holds many opportunities for high wages without a college degree.

“I think a combination of those factors is going to push some kids to delay post-secondary,” he said. “And the more you delay it, the odds of success are less.”

Trying to go back to school at that point, he said, is “always challenging.”&�Բ�����;

A new kind of report card

Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research () at the American Institutes for Research, said COVID recovery “has not fully happened” in many schools. 

“I’m not feeling super optimistic about pandemic recovery writ large right now,” he said. 

The new CRPE report, he said, demonstrates the “real conundrum” that schools face in communicating with parents: “I think that schools need to convey in more plain English where kids are at,” he said. 

But he said results from large-scale standardized exams “don’t resonate the way that information about their own students would resonate. What we need is for school systems to just be really clear with individual families about when their students are struggling. And I don’t think that school systems typically do that.”

Educators, he said, are typically optimistic about students’ chances of bouncing back — and fearful of being blamed for kids’ academic problems. 

“Schools don’t have a ton of incentive to communicate in ways that might negatively bounce back to them,” he said.

Lake, the CRPE director, said one good way to fix this problem is simply to rethink report cards.

“Parents look to report cards first,” she said. “And report cards need to be able to say how the kids are actually doing — not just that they’re getting a particular grade. Are they mastering the skills that they need to graduate? Are they on track? And so that’s where I’d focus my efforts.”

Linda Jacobson contributed to this report.

Washington students will soon be able to use workforce experience to graduate high school.

At a State Board of Education meeting on Thursday, members began hammering out proposed rules to put into effect. The law, approved during this year’s legislative session, allows high school students to move toward graduation by completing a “performance-based learning experience,” such as professional skill-building, internships, or community service.

“Our young people who are demonstrating proficiency ought to be able to show that in ways other than what we see in our traditional classroom settings,” Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, who sponsored the bill, said at the board meeting.

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The law will turn workforce experience into a “graduation pathway” in Washington. Graduation pathways were established in 2019, giving high school students different avenues toward graduation. The original paths are either focused on completing class credits or passing tests.

Kevin Wang, a Board of Education member from Bellevue, worried that small and medium-sized businesses may not be interested in participating in the new initiative, especially due to liability concerns. Wang suggested incentives such as tax credits could help.

But Stonier said employers will come around once they see the benefits of getting to prepare students for jobs at their businesses, particularly as many employers report that classrooms do not equip students for jobs.

The new law also requires schools to use state evaluation tools and include at least one certified teacher, endorsed in a relevant subject area, to evaluate whether a student has met graduation requirements.

Wang asked how that would work if a student chooses a real-world experience like selling cars that does not easily align with traditional school subjects.

Linda Drake, the board’s director of career and college readiness, said schools will have to determine how a work experience like that would match various subjects. Stonier pointed out selling cars involves communication skills, English and math.

“I spent a lot of time watching people do weird jobs and thinking, ‘what would that pathway look like?’” Stonier said.

School board members discussed how the program could involve asking teachers to take on more work, how the new graduation pathway would look for special education students and how to ensure school districts have minimum standards in place for the initiative.

Approval of proposed rules for HB 1308 is set to take place at a September Board of Education meeting.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on and .

Gabby Quirova asked for loose natural curls at the hair salon, which she knew could stand up to the heat and still look intact all throughout Friday’s graduation ceremony. She’d be off to college soon, at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, a place she was originally worried would be too big and confusing to navigate, but she had recently visited and loved all of the professors she met.

She fell in love with teaching during high school and her dream is to become a special education teacher.

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Two other women were getting their hair done at 1 p.m. and a hairdresser sang along with a Celine Dion song. A “happy birthday” banner was strung across the mirror in anticipation of the hairdresser’s birthday on Sunday.

It all felt so normal. And in Uvalde, there has been precious little normality since the shooting at Robb Elementary School exactly a month earlier that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Graduation had originally been scheduled for May 27, three days after the shooting. Now the Uvalde High School class of 2022 was finally going to walk across the stage. Some of the 288 graduating seniors opted to forgo the ceremony and pick up their diplomas earlier, but Gabby wanted to be there.

“You deserve to walk that stage,” Gabby’s mom, Ashley Quirova, told her daughter. She had arrived after Gabby to get a quick haircut. She was warm and upbeat, excited to give her daughter a day to celebrate. A day that’s not dominated by what happened on May 24.

“I don’t want to lose sight of what these kids have accomplished,” Ashley Quirova said. “I don’t want to lose focus on these kids who have worked so hard to be where they’re at.”

These past few years have not been easy for the class of 2022. Many of the seniors remember an incident during their eighth grade year at ​​Morales Junior High School in 2018, when two students, inspired by the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado, were arrested for when they would be high school seniors.

High school has been a gauntlet of pandemic precautions and virtual school. The tragedy at Robb Elementary School has hit them all hard. Many of them had attended Robb. The 18-year-old gunman — who was killed by law enforcement to end the massacre — had been in their class before he dropped out.

The day before the shooting, Gabby joined other seniors in a local tradition: a graduation walk at Robb Elementary School. She wore the same cap and gown she would wear at graduation, as she and others high-fived the Robb students, who gave the seniors letters of support.

Gabby knew many Robb students personally — including three who died in the shooting. As part of a four-year education track at Uvalde High, she taught classes at Robb this past semester.

“I saw these little kids so excited to see us and so excited to see a new teacher,” she said. The next day, some of those students died in the deadliest shooting ever at a Texas public school.

That hasn’t changed Gabby’s mind about her future. She wants to come back to Uvalde to teach after college. She is proud of her tight-knit community, and the shooting doesn’t change how she feels about her town.

“It’s a tragedy but not a label,” she said. “Uvalde is one heart. One whole heart. No matter what happens, we’re always going to come together.”

Samantha Quiroz, another Uvalde senior who taught at Robb, was also there for the senior walk.

“It was our last day at Robb and all of these students came up to me just like, ‘Miss Q, Miss Q!’ and it was so beautiful,” she said “I loved seeing their smiles. They were giving me so many letters.”

She has a letter from one of her former students who died in the shooting. The note said: “Miss Q., I can’t wait. I hope to see you in my classes in the future.”

“It made me cry so much but it inspired me,” Quiroz said. The shooting, she said, won’t stop her from reaching her goals and being a teacher.

Photos on graduation caps

A few hours before graduation, Gabby sat at a high table in her living room while her aunt, Mary Kathleene Sprawls, did her makeup, picking pink lip gloss and sparkly gold eye shadow out of a bubblegum-colored Caboodles makeup box from the 1980s. Gabby’s favorite dog, Rosie, paced around the house while “Gilmore Girls” played on the TV with the audio turned off.

Gabby’s father, Guillermo Quirova Jr., stood watching her, still processing that his youngest child would soon be off to college. He is a retired police officer, a kind, soft-spoken man who is eager to brag on Gabby’s accomplishments in weightlifting and soccer. Every year, father and daughter help build the Uvalde High School haunted houses.

Despite the tragedy at Robb Elementary, Gabby says she is determined to become a teacher. She sometimes struggled as a student, she said, and some of her teachers took the time to help her. She wants to do the same for other children.

“What happened recently kind of gave me more of an incentive because I want to be able to protect these kids and allow them to grow up to become more teachers or maybe lawyers or principals or anything they want to be,” she said.

Her makeup done, Gabby put on a baby-blue spring dress with small white flowers, which she bought at Walmart for graduation day. Her mom, who works as a recruiter for two companies, was wearing a special T-shirt made by a woman in town, the front covered with pictures of Gabby. Her dad opted for a casual long-sleeve shirt.

They drove to the stadium early, arriving 45 minutes before the doors opened at 5:30 p.m. to give themselves time to navigate the extra security. The seniors were each given 10 tickets for friends and family, and no one without a ticket would be allowed in. Parents wouldn’t be able to take pictures with the graduates on the football field as they have in past years.

The graduates were prohibited from having cellphones during the ceremony, but Gabby planned to carry hers so she could reach her family quickly if needed. She also carried an AirTag tracking device that her aunt bought at Walmart so they could know where Gabby was at all times.

At Honey Bowl Stadium, two lines formed at the main entrance and wrapped around the block as state troopers and unmarked police vehicles patrolled nearby streets. People stood quietly in line with water bottles and umbrellas to shield them from the intense June sun that had pushed the temperature to 101 degrees. Some held balloons and customized fans with the photos and names of seniors; others wore maroon shirts with the words “Uvalde Strong.” After everyone was scanned with metal detectors and the ceremony began, the sun began to set, and the bleachers were enveloped in shade.

The class valedictorian, Abigail M. Kone, quoted Corinthians: “We often suffer but we are never crushed,” she said, then read the names of the children who died at Robb Elementary one by one. They now belong to the kingdom of heaven, she said.

“I would like to include these children from Robb Elementary as honorary members of the class of 2022 family,” she said.

The crowd stood and applauded, and many wiped tears from their eyes.

Tributes to the children who died were everywhere. Gabby had taped pictures of all 19 on her graduation cap. Many of her classmates had decorated their own caps with messages or tributes to the children.

“I know these kids aren’t going to be able to walk the stage on their own, so I wanted to be able to give them that,” Gabby said.

As the sun set and the lights clicked on to illuminate the football field, each senior’s name boomed over the loudspeakers. They filed onto the stage one by one to receive their diplomas. The ceremony closed with the farewell address by senior Lynd Danielle C. Diongzon, who began crying in the middle of her speech and continued to weep through the rest of it — a moment of release.

“We came in fall of 2018, as young freshmen, scared we would walk into the wrong class,” she started as she choked up. “We will never forget those who should be with us today. … The class of 2022 sends our love, thoughts and prayers to everyone who may have been affected by the incident that happened exactly one month ago today. Our class also asks for change, change that would prevent any other tragedy whether it is at a school, grocery store or concert.”

Afterward, Gabby’s family and friends gathered at Hangar 6 Air Cafe for dinner. It’s housed in an old World War II airplane hangar that’s still operating and offers $10 off any burger with the purchase of $100 of jet fuel. They had rented the whole outdoor patio, lit up with overhead lamps. A dozen family members and friends sat at a long table with baskets of fried pickles and iced teas and sodas.

Gabby and her cousin, Andrea Serna, cried as they posed for photos with their diplomas, sad to be leaving each other soon.

Then they showed off the matching tattoos they got on their ankles two days after the shooting at Robb Elementary — an outline of the state of Texas with a small red heart right over Uvalde.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

But for one graduating class at St. George Academy, a tiny Ukrainian school in New York City’s East Village, students and teachers celebrated making it through all of that earlier this month — and a war in their homeland of Ukraine, along with living through several years of a pandemic.

Between proms and college visits, St. George Academy’s graduating class of 13 made harrowing phone calls to loved ones in Ukraine, attended assemblies about the war and welcomed students who recently escaped the country — all while adjusting to spells of disrupted learning from COVID.

Although it wasn’t the graduation they expected, there was relief it was OK to celebrate such an important milestone. There were hugs and taking pictures by the balloons, meeting each other’s families and saying goodbye to teachers and the classmates who went through so much together.

In dire need of a joyous celebration, St. George’s principal Andrew Stasiw hoped for a commencement day focused on the students’ accomplishments, rather than the conflicts that plagued their school years. 

“We want our event to be as celebratory as possible, and the war has fatigued our school in many ways,” Principal Stasiw told The 74 days before the graduation. “In some ways, there is a sense that the school was robbed yet again of a ‘normal’ school year. With two years of pandemic and now this conflict, it really has not been a normal school year.”

But at the ceremony on a sunny June Saturday, the tears and pleading for Ukraine crept in.

It was impossible for the students, and even Stasiw, to ignore such topics. 

Salutatorian Vitalina Voitenko who arrived from Ukraine in 2018, focused on what she has overcome as an immigrant in her speech, becoming emotional as she spoke about a difficult year in front of family and friends. 

Many of her relatives had arrived just days before through the Uniting for Ukraine program.

“Our senior class witnessed history,” Voitenko said, surrounded by blue and yellow flags and gilded, Byzantine-style murals at the Saint George Catholic Church, behind the school, where the ceremony was held. 

“We survived COVID, political unrest,” she continued. “Now we are praying and hoping Ukraine will survive war with Russia. That’s a lot in four years of high school.”

Many of her relatives had arrived just days before through the Uniting for Ukraine program.

Class valedictorian, Fernando Mack, shared how grateful he was to graduate in person. Because of the pandemic, he thought a virtual graduation was likely. 

Although Mack is not Ukrainian and knew little about the country before attending St. George, he has loved learning the language and feels a deep connection to the homeland of some of his closest friends.

“To be here with my classmates just feels so good,” said Mack. “When everything was happening it kind of broke my heart, because that’s my classmates. We are all like family.”&�Բ�����;

Mack recalled waking up one morning at the beginning of the invasion to a spiral of texts and videos from panicked classmates worried about friends and family still in Ukraine.

“Oh my gosh, it broke my heart … that’s their family,” He said.

Closing out a ceremony mixed with moments of joy and somber reflection, two Ukrainian born graduates, Voitenko and Sophia Klyuba, were surprised with scholarships from the Helena Poliszczuk-Diaz Memorial Scholarship Fund, a memorial scholarship for needy Ukrainian students at the St. George Academy.

Stasiw asked the crowd to keep Ukraine in their hearts, quickly jumping back on the piano playing uplifting tunes as the 13 students flipped their tassels to the other side, exiting the church as graduates, ready to take pictures and document the monumental moment.

In the backgrounds of their precious photos are reminders of the difficult time: blue and yellow flags waving in the warm June breeze, posters sharing how to support Ukraine.

Dozens of camera flashes later, students and their families filed into the school’s gym decorated with glistening “Congrats class of 2022” decorations, cake and Ukrainian “Kanapky” — open-faced ham sandwiches — from the neighborhood’s favorite butcher, Andrew Ilnicki. 

Stasiw met many of his students’ family members for the first time. Many thanked Stasiw for their child’s education.

One parent he didn’t meet was Klyuba’s mom, who couldn’t make it out of Ukraine on time. Her sister arrived two days before the ceremony.

“I’m very happy that [my sister] came in to share my excitement today and celebrate with me, but obviously I wish that my mom and grandma from Ukraine were also here.” Klyuba said.

The 13 St. George graduates had persevered through heartbreak and hardship — and triumphed.

“They are superstars,” said art teacher Irene Saviano. “They’ve been through the worst, but now they can achieve anything they want.”

All images by Meghan Gallagher for The 74.