CLASS ACTION : Latino parents in Santa Monica are learning what it takes to reduce the dropout rate and boost their children’s school performance.

As his mother commiserated with other Latino parents over how difficult it is to get children to do their homework, 7-year-old Victor sat in the back of the classroom, sketching.

On a white napkin, served with the morning’s cookies during the parents’ meeting, he drew a picture of one Latino boy shooting a gun at another. He decorated the drawing with gang graffiti.

Pressure from gangs is only one factor contributing to a staggering dropout rate among Latino students in the Los Angeles area and throughout the nation. Statewide, education officials estimate 37% of Latinos in high school will drop out over the next three years.

Number of Causes

Experts cite a gamut of causes: difficulty with the English language, inadequate bilingual education programs, cultural conflicts, anti-Latino bias, a lack of guidance from overworked or uninterested counselors and a lack of support from parents who often don’t understand or are intimidated by the system.

In an effort to both reduce the dropout rate and generally improve their children’s performance in school, a group of Latino parents in Santa Monica has taken action.

Through a yearlong series of workshops held in Spanish, the parents are studying how to get their children into college-preparation courses, how to deal with PTAs, how to encourage their kids to do their homework and how to discipline children in an American society where rules can seem lax.

Similar programs for Latino parents have existed on the Eastside for years.

But they are fairly new on the Westside, where Latino activists and some educators say the school system is largely ill-equipped to counsel minority children.

“The root of all the problems (plaguing Latino youth) is that our children are not graduating from high school, and when they do, they don’t have the skills,” said Yolanda Becerra Jones, former director of the Latino Resource Organization, which sponsors the parent workshops.

“Until they get the support to stay in school from their parents and from Latino professionals, all the other issues (are secondary),” Jones said. “It’s where we must put all our efforts.”

Program Expanded

The Latino Resource Organization, a nonprofit, Santa Monica-based community service group funded largely by the city, started the Parent Leadership Program workshops last school year with one session a month. It expanded this year to twice-a-week workshops. Fifty parents participated the first year and about 70 this year.

The goal is to help parents overcome language and cultural barriers so they can become active in their children’s educations and see them through to Graduation Day and then college. The Latino Resource Organization specifically targeted first-generation immigrant families for the workshops.

The organization also is co-sponsoring bilingual tutoring sessions for students in the second through 12th grades.

Activists say these kinds of programs are necessary because the public school system has failed to tackle the problem.

Problems in school are by no means limited to Westside Latinos. But activists charge that because Latinos are a minority on the Westside, unlike on the predominantly Latino Eastside, the school system has been slow to accommodate students and/or parents whose native language is Spanish.

“We do as much as we can, but I would be the first to say that it probably is not enough,” said Peggy Lyons, president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Board of Education.

She pointed to cutbacks in funding for bilingual education and a severe shortage of bilingual teachers, counselors and administrators in her district.

“This is a district that was not Hispanic originally, but the percentage (of Latinos) is going up faster than any other group,” Lyons said. “We are just starting to come to grips with the problem. We recognize that it (the problem) is there, but resources to resolve it--money and people--aren’t readily available.”

A survey of the district, which has a total enrollment of 9,555, shows that the percentage of Latino students rose from 15% in 1973 to 26% last year. The percentage of blacks increased only 1%, to 9%, while whites fell from 74% to 57%.

Lyons said the schools offer English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) courses and last year began a pilot program at Edison Elementary School that eases Spanish-speaking children into bilingual instruction, beginning in kindergarten.

But she said private programs such as the Parent Leadership workshops are vital.

“They are filling a void,” she said.

Activists charge that Latino students are often steered away from college-track curriculum. Once in ESL classes, they are often trapped in courses that do not prepare them for college.

“Counselors are not counseling, they are just programming,” Antonio Vazquez, director of the Latino Resource Organization, said.

Natividad Vazquez, director of the Latino Center at Santa Monica College, echoed that complaint and blamed segregation within the city for slowing the school system’s response to Latino children.

“I’m amazed at the number of kids coming here who stopped taking math in the 10th grade,” said Vazquez, who counsels Latino students at the college. “They say their counselors told them not to (continue higher math courses). It has to do with counselors’ perceptions of what to expect from Latino or black students.”

Part of the solution to the problem rests with the parents, activists say. Ed Farias, the instructor who runs the Parent Leadership workshops, said his goal is to encourage parents to take “leadership roles” at home and in the school and become active in all phases of their children’s education.

Farias said it is sometimes difficult to get parents involved because they are working two jobs to eke out a living or because they are embarrassed to admit they have problems with their children. Parent-child conflicts often arise because the child refuses to speak Spanish and the parent can’t speak English, Farias said.

On a recent Saturday at a Parent Leadership seminar in a classroom at Adams Elementary School, the group of mostly mothers lamented the “contaminated” society that makes it so difficult to raise children in the United States. Back in Mexico, said one mother, it was so much easier because more family was around for support.

They asked about gangs, drugs, and adjustment. And they talked about the time they spend reading with their children, whether they see regular report cards and how to get career counseling for their children.

In separate interviews, the parents said the classes had helped them.

Ofelia Rios, a 12-year resident of the area, works in a drapery factory and has 9-year-old twins and a 10-year-old.

“It is important for us to know how to educate our children in this country, where customs are extremely different,” she said. “There are more dangers here. Here, the children go out more and aren’t always within your sight.

“I am learning to educate myself, to reinforce my knowledge, so as to be able to help my children educate themselves in this world.”

Despite her 15 years in the United States, Agustina Flores, who works in a hospital, speaks very little English and has found adjustment difficult.

When her adult daughter moved out to live on her own, a custom not often followed in Latin America, it was the last straw.

“I was going through a very, very difficult situation,” Flores, 46, said in Spanish. “In Mexico, this psychology of giving rights to children does not exist. The rights and the command belong to the parent.”

But she said the class taught her self-confidence and to become more accustomed to American ways. When her youngest child, a 7-year-old boy, recently began to show signs of rebellion, she was able to deal with it through a successful combination of discipline and understanding.

“Before, I could not talk with them (the children). Now, I am talking with him (the youngest); I give him some time to go out, and then he settles down to do his homework.”

Tutoring for students serves as a supplement to the parent training. The Latino Resource Organization and the Desarrollo Estudiantil Hispano organization offer sessions three days a week at Virginia Park with volunteer instructors from local colleges.

The age-old dilemma of how to strike a balance between learning or using English and maintaining one’s own Latino culture comes into play.

“We tell them to maintain their cultural identity but continue education as a way to employment,” said Hector Perez Pacheco, a 21-year-old college student who coordinates the tutoring program.

And, on occasion, a bit of political consciousness-raising is mixed in along with multiplication tables and homework.

Armando Guerra, a UCLA student guest-lecturing during the tutoring session, reminded the children that Southern California used to be part of Mexico. He spent a few minutes teaching the “Chicano alphabet:” A is for Aztlan, legendary homeland of the Aztecs; B is for brown skins; C for Chicano.

“I have no problem with Chicano kids learning English, but not at the expense of their own culture,” Guerra said later. “Students shouldn’t have to strip their roots to function in society.”

Guerra resented the use of the word “dropout” because it suggests a voluntary departure rather that what he considers the reality: A system that forces youngsters out by refusing to recognize their culture and language.

“(Education) has to take into consideration where the person comes from,” he said. “History about the Mayflower and pilgrims is OK for Anglo kids. But (including) a few Spanish names would help Latino kids relate and not think that brown people didn’t accomplish anything.”