Distance education has led to an increase in the number of students leaving high school in Santa Clara County.
The 2021 Silicon Valley Index, released by the nonprofit Joint Venture Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies, showed that it is particularly true for homeless youth, English-speaking students, Hispanics and low-income students.
Rachel Massaro, vice president and director of research at the Joint Venture Silicon Valley, said students struggled with distance education, especially those with inequalities.
“The fact that the pandemic has increased the dropout rate in Silicon Valley is very worrying,” Massaro said. “Not only because we never want students to leave high school, but also because of the differences in how students could withstand the crisis.”
Philippine students saw the highest increase in dropout rates among high school students in schools in Santa Clara County. In 2019-20, 160 Filipino students left school without a degree compared to the previous school year, Massaro said. The increase, from 37 to 197 dropouts from the nearly 1,000 Filipino high school students in the country, represents an increase in their dropout rate to nearly 20% from about 4%.
Over the 2019-20 school year, 2,946 of the 21,398 high school students in a Santa Clara County group dropped out, about 14% dropout rate. This is an increase of 9%, or 1,925 dropouts from 21,276 total students the previous year. Among the racial and ethnic groups in Santa Clara County who moved out during the 2019-20 school year, 52% were Hispanic, 20% Asian, 14% black, and 13% white.
Language distribution
Distance education is especially difficult for people who have learned English as a second language, said Cuauhcihuatl Trinidad, vice president of program operations for ConXion to Community, a nonprofit organization in San Jose that provides education, labor, behavioral health, and social services.
Parents who struggle with English cannot provide homework help and access to teachers is more limited. In the 2018-19 school year, 156 English learners left high school. The number increased to 1,086 English learners in the 2019-20 school year.
“Some find it hard to concentrate,” Trinidad said. “… and will only participate if they have their parents or someone to make sure they do.”
Corina Herrera-Loera, president of the Alum Rock Union School District Board, said East Side youths face additional challenges to their education. Since many parents have essential workers, they are accused of caring for their younger siblings and do not have quiet places to do their schoolwork.
“When I think of the youth in our East Side community, many of them are caregivers,” she said. “I can not imagine the daily stress for a high school student who … has to do their own job, oversee the needs of the younger children and want to share the internet.”
Herrera-Loera said this kind of tension coupled with connection challenges can make teens go up with school. They might decide to keep their siblings safe, commit themselves and be fed while their parents have to work, she said.
Or students may feel compelled to join the workforce to make sure the family can pay their rent. Many also share a room with other family members, making it difficult to concentrate.
The dropout rate for Latino students is more than four times the percentage for other students in some of the district schools, officials said.
Chris Funk, superintendent of the East Side Union High School District, agrees that the coronavirus pandemic has affected Latino students excessively.
To reduce the dropout rate, the district decided last spring that distance education would not have a negative effect on students’ grades. This semester, all Fs have changed to no pass. Students still have to fail for classes that fail, but that does not affect their GPAs.
“I think it will keep more kids in the game longer,” Funk said.
Contact Lorraine Gabbert by [email protected]