Latino School Board of Education Association Conference

Last Friday I attended a conference in Visalia for members of the California Latino School Board of Education Association. When one of my supervisors first mentioned she had been invited to present at this forum, I was surprised to learn that there was a statewide association for Latino School Board members. In my experience, the majority of school administrators, teachers, school district staff, etc. have not been representative of the current demographics. Since there were no Latino administrators at my school or school district that I knew of (until my senior year in high school when our newly hired principal was Latino), attending this conference where educators and community advocacy members were of my ethnicity was very empowering for me. Although I did not know any of them, and had barely met them that day, I saw them as leaders in my community and only hope that they are truly advocating for fair educational opportunities for students of color.

There was one presentation that focused on high school drop out rates and college opportunities made available to low-income students of color. What was said during this presentation did not surprise me, as I have read articles and have been at forums where the low performance and low college attendance rates of minority students is discussed. Over and over again I have read and heard (and have personally experienced it as well) that more affluent suburban schools are able to provide its students with all the resources, state-of-the-art facilities and qualified and experience teachers, while low-income minority and English Learners who most often attend poverty-stricken inner-city or urban schools experience the opposite of that. Again, I ask myself how will we ever expect the latter students to be able to perform well on standardized exams if we are not providing them the resources they need to succeed?

Another part of the conference that was inspirational for me was a short video on a student run campaign in the LA Unified School District that demanded the School Board members to adopt a policy that would require all high school students to take A-G courses as part of graduation requirements. Many students appeared in the video, chanting and holding signs that said “education for all” and “we want to go to college.” The LAUSD School Board recently voted on a policy that will make it a requirement for all high school students to take these college preparatory courses. Although students can opt out of the requirement, at least all students will supposedly have the opportunity to take those classes that would make them eligible for college.