Yakima lags well behind state, U.S. in high school graduates
About 1 in 4 Yakima County residents 25 and older don’t have a high school diploma.
The rate runs counter to a national trend that finds for the first time in U.S. history, 90 percent of the country’s residents 25 and older have graduated from high school, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Statewide, nearly 91 percent of Washington residents in that same age category have attained a high school degree.
But it’s a different story in Yakima County, where just 72 percent of residents 25 and older have graduated from high school.
The causes of that lack of educational attainment are rooted in poverty and barriers, such as language. Mental health and substance abuse issues also play a role, officials say. But educators and other experts are working to address those problems through programs and services designed to keep local youths in school and ultimately see them graduate.
“It’s not a case where students are doing fantastically in school and then things fall apart,” said Yakima School District superintendent Jack Irion. “There are some benchmarks along the way we look at and consider when providing services to students. And all of those feed into that idea of getting them to graduation.”
Multiple challenges
Census numbers help clarify the challenges Yakima and other similar-sized Washington counties face in educating children, according to a Yakima Herald-Republic analysis of census data online at American FactFinder.
Yakima, Franklin and Grant counties have high numbers of foreign-born residents – over 18 percent, the data show. They also have high rates of people living in poverty – over 16 percent. And, those three counties also have lower numbers of people 25 and older who had attained a high school diploma or better. For example, about 74 percent of Franklin County residents have high school degrees and some 75 percent of Grant County residents have achieved the same, according to Educational Attainment data from the census’ 2016 American Community Survey.
The reality of those numbers can be found in impoverished students, whose focus is on basic needs such as food or shelter rather than what’s going on in the classroom, Irion said.
Yakima School District had nearly 850 students who qualified as homeless during the 2016-17 school year. As a result of the significant number of those students, the district qualifies to offer its nearly 16,000 students free breakfast and lunch, he said.
“If your stomach is growling, it’s difficult to focus on learning,” Irion said. “But (students) know access to food is no longer an issue because they get both breakfast and lunch here.”
But it’s not just poverty that’s holding students back. Non-native English speaking children often see their progress slowed because they’re learning a new language while also trying to learn math, science, social studies or reading, said Laurie Shannon, graduation, re-engagement and truancy program supervisor for the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Frustrated and disillusioned because they can’t find a way to succeed, these students all too often give up and drop out of school, Shannon said.
It’s a situation with which Irion is familiar.
“Students understand when they don’t understand,” Irion said. “And they understand when another student understands and they don’t. So we need our business to be about hope and possibilities to keep the doors (to education) open.”
To do that, the educators have developed programs to address students’ differing educational needs – from vocational training to childcare for teen parents – to minimize the barriers to graduation. One example is the state High School and Beyond program, which allows certain students to make a high school academic plan tailored to their interests and future career goals, such as becoming a welder, instead of taking a traditional course load.
“It’s supposed to create some ownership and put students on the pathway of what they want to be when they grow up,” said Dixie Grunenfulder, state K-12 systems supervisor. Yakima School District has a similar program – one of the first statewide – allowing students interested in certain careers to apprentice and earn high school credits while on the job.
Other efforts to keep students on track include:
Moving away from traditional discipline measures such as suspension or expulsion, which often result in students missing out on instruction. Rather, schools are encouraged to address problem behavior in other ways – such a moving student to a different class or immediate enrollment in an alternative school – that will keep them from falling behind.
Yakima School District has workshops for teachers to learn Spanish phrases to better communicate with Spanish-speaking parents during parent-teacher conferences. The district also has teen parent programs allowing pregnant teens to stay in school.
“There should be multiple pathways to a diploma,” said Danise Ackelson, a state school counseling program supervisor. “The goal is still the same, but how you might get there looks really different.”
Those efforts are working – most notably in the Sunnyside School District where officials partnered with Gonzaga University to improve on-time graduation rates. In 2010, the rate was about 50 percent – over the last seven years its steadily improved with 90 percent of students graduating on time in 2017.
Sunnyside High School principal Ryan Maxwell said that dramatic improvement was made by changing the way school staff – from administrators, office staff, teachers, counselors and others – provide support to students facing poverty, homelessness, domestic violence and other issues.
Most recently, the school is working to implement mental health and substance abuse programs to help achieve a 100-percent on-time graduation rate.
“We keep it simple and just change programs based on the needs of the kids,” Maxwell said. “Early on, when we had half the kids not graduating, the problem was so big. Now (that) we’ve been successful , we’re able to continue honing in and focus on the 9 percent (that still isn’t graduating).”