Lourdes Flores is the executive director of ARISE, a community-based organization that understands education as key to a community’s development.
Her son is a bright, hard-working student who, last year, was in the eighth grade.
Lourdes is a mother who understood the recent changes in Texas’ graduation requirements, and, as she tells the story, last fall she and her husband had looked forward to a long discussion with their son about high school, and his academic future.
But the weeks went by, and she never got word from the school about enrolling her son into one of the new graduation plans. She finally asked him if he happened to know anything about it and the boy smiled and said, oh yes, indeed he did, and that he was delighted that with the plan that he had chosen, as he would get to play football.
Lourdes FloresLourdes told me that she was so upset that she could hardly speak. She felt as if someone had stolen something from her. She drove to the school counselor’s office, sure that there had been a mistake. How could someone else choose her son’s education plan?
But that was indeed the case. The school counselor was misinformed. The counselor believed that the choice was the boy’s alone to make, and at first refused to discuss the case at all. “This is between me and the student. The parent has nothing to do with this.”
After several conversations, things were straightened out, and Lourdes’ son is now on an endorsement path that will allow him, after high school graduation, to apply for university.
The troubles that Lourdes went through on behalf of her son are not particular to her, but they are new. In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 5 (HB5). HB5 made substantial modifications to the state's curriculum and graduation requirements. The law changed the traditional graduation requirements from the "4x4" plan (four full years in four basic subjects) to a 22-credit endorsement plan. A student could now choose an endorsement plan that would allow for graduation with the credits necessary for admission into a university—or one that simply allows for graduation. That is, a student can successfully graduate from high school, but not have enough credits or the proper courses to be accepted into a Texas university. Should a student choose such a path, and then wish to attend university, she might well have to earn the necessary credits at a community college, spending down her available student financial aid options, and adding years to her post-high school preparation.
This choice of the endorsement path is made in the 8th grade, and one would assume that parents would want to be informed and involved in this decision. But as Lourdes had discovered, that may not be the case.
This past winter, the Equal Voice Network’s Education Working group decided that the lack of awareness in the community around HB5 warranted a survey to test both the degree of ignorance in the region about the new graduation requirements as well as to raise some sensitivity about the issue.
Throughout the spring, then, Equal Voice partners designed and then distributed
surveys in school districts all across the Valley. The questions volunteers asked were simple enough, but to the point: “Are you familiar with your child’s high school graduation plans?” “Do you know if your child will be taking Algebra II”?
More than 1,600 parents took the time to answer the questions. The survey responses were collected, collated and analyzed. The survey featured a huge sample size, and reached communities served by eight different school districts.
The results, while confirming our suspicions that the vast majority of parents were unaware of the implications of endorsement choices, were distressing. Even as we reflected on the results this spring and summer, we realized that the Valley’s first HB5 cohort (last year’s 8th graders) may well have lost an untold number of future university students. Their families hadn’t understood the implications of an endorsement choice. There wasn’t yet the capacity in place for the schools to respond to this need.
Those students are starting out their academic careers at a disadvantage. That is not fair.
The members of Equal Voice, particularly those engaged with “PTA Comunitarios” (a community-based PTA) decided that the best response to the survey was to hold a Mesa Comunitaria, a community forum, as a way of bringing the issue to the fore. In collaboration with the leadership team of RGV Focus, and with the able direction of the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA), Equal Voice extended invitations to every school superintendent in the Valley.
Thus, during the busiest week of the school year, administrators and community leaders alike responded to the invitation. The participants shared stories, dreams and frustrations. The school administrators listened, intently, and the long session ended with a series of strategic plans being drawn up--and homework assigned.
In its own way, the Equal Voice Valley community has created its own endorsement path—a intentional collaboration between parents, community leaders, students, teachers and administrators that will work to make college readiness an attainable goal for every single Rio Grande Valley child. The issue is complicated. The needs nearly overwhelming.
There can, however, be no wiser way to invest in our future, than to have students, families, administrators and leaders working together to create the finest education for all of our children. This is, indeed, how one prepares for school.
Editor’s Note: Michael Seifert is the Network Weaver for the Rio Grande Valley Equal Voice Network. RGV-EV includes the follow community-based organizations in its partnership: ARISE – A Resource in Service Equality (Alamo) • American Civil Liberties’ Union of Texas (Brownsville) • BCHC – Brownsville Community Health Center (Brownsville) • La Unión del Pueblo Entero LUPE (San Juan) • Proyecto Azteca (San Juan) • Proyecto Juan Diego (Cameron Park/Brownsville) • South Texas Civil Rights Project (Alamo)
