Many Will Drop Out : School Gives 9th-Graders a Last Dance

Although graduation day is special for all graduates, it is especially significant at Sun Valley Junior High School, where many of the 550 ninth-grade students will experience their final commencement ceremonies Thursday.

“The students go on to high school, but somewhere between the 10th and 11th grades, they drop out,” explained Principal Jeanne Hon. She said most of those who drop out do so because of “financial pressures.”

Hon said that she and her administration came up with graduation exercises patterned after high schools once they realized how few of their students would finish 12th grade.

They also have tried to make the final weeks before graduation special for their ninth-graders. Activities have included an afternoon at a local amusement park, a campus screening of a current movie and a variety of events that students at other junior highs might envy.

Had Prom in May

For the second year, there also was a prom in May. Not a night dance, like other junior highs might have, but a real prom to which the girls came dressed in fancy dresses and the boys in their best suits.

“We want graduation and their prom to be very special, in case it’s their last one,” Hon said. She added that “for many, many of our students, they are the first ones in their family to graduate from junior high school.”

About 70% of Sun Valley’s students are Latinos and many arrive at the school with a limited command of English. Neighborhoods around the school are some of the toughest in the San Fernando Valley, with some of the area’s highest rates of crime and unemployment.

Hon and her staff have tried to make the junior high an oasis of learning. Special district funds keep class sizes small and a wide-range of academic and vocational electives have been added to a recently broadened curriculum. There are also special counseling activities aimed at motivating the students to continue their education.

Motivation Task Force

“We have programs such as the Youth Motivation Task Force, comprised of businessmen, the Black Scholars Program and the Future Scholars Program that track students through junior and senior high schools and through college,” said Hon. “All of these programs are designed to push kids to complete school.”

There are no separate statistics available on how many Sun Valley students do not finish high school. (Los Angeles Unified School District officials say that the overall attrition rate in the district is 44%, although this figure includes students who have transferred to other schools.) But Sun Valley teachers and administrators who watch their own students believe the rate is high.

Sun Valley ninth-graders say they know why so many of their classmates never earn a high school diploma. Girls get pregnant and leave school, they say. Or parents ask their sons to put an early end to their schoolwork so they can work full-time to help support younger brothers and sisters. And then there are the youngsters who never had academic success in lower grades, then take off when they get frustrated trying to tackle tougher courses.

“It’s pressure from friends,” said Arabelle Bustos, a ninth-grader. “Some people push you not to do your work. Some friends encourage you to do your work. It all depends on who your friends are.”

Said ninth-grader Veronica Gonzalez: “They wonder why they should keep going on, so they stop.”