Photos: Shutterstock; Graphics: Gwenette Writer Sinclair for Youth Today
This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education.
After a 74 investigation found new arrivals routinely turned away. Some long for what they could have accomplished with a H.S. diploma and others are grateful for theirs.
Melvin
Melvin Martinez was nearly 23 years old when he enrolled in the 12th grade at Rudsdale High School in Oakland, California.
Originally from El Salvador, he attempted school years earlier, entering the ninth grade at age 17. But he dropped out two and a half years later: Already a parent, he struggled with managing his studies and fatherhood.
“I didn’t think about it, if it was a good decision or a bad one,” Martinez said. But after toiling away at a local Mexican restaurant for years, not making any real progress in life, he came to regret the move.
Three years after he quit school, his former math teacher came to his workplace by chance and asked Martinez how he was doing. When the young man said he lamented his decision to give up on his education, the teacher told him it wasn’t too late to re-enroll.
Martinez knew it was his last chance:
Half a decade older than his classmates, he took school seriously, earning straight A’s.
Now 24, he is chipping away at business classes at the College of Alameda and encourages high schools across the country to open their doors to older, new arrivals like him.
“There are a lot of people who are very, very smart but don’t have the opportunity to continue school,” he said. “If we can help those guys who are very motivated to continue, let’s do it. It will be good for the country, too.”
But a 16-month-long undercover investigation of enrollment practices at 630 high schools across the country — in which The 74 tried to register a 19-year-old Venezuelan newcomer who spoke little English and whose education had been interrupted after ninth grade — revealed rampant refusals.
Our test teen, “Hector Guerrero,” was denied more than 300 times, including by 204 schools in the 35 states and the District of Columbia where high school attendance goes up to at least age 20. State education officials in almost all these locations separately confirmed to The 74 that a 19-year-old could not be turned away because of his age.
The young man said he will never forget the teacher who encouraged him to re-register.
“You may think those are little things that are not important, but in those little things, you can change people’s future,” he said.
