School's caring helps students beat odds
International High acts as surrogate parent to push immigrant teenagers to college careers
The teenagers spoke not a word of English when they came to Boston four years ago. Some left parents behind in Guatemala, Cape Verde, and Haiti. Others arrived with only a primary school education.
They were the first class to enter Boston International High, created in 2003 to educate recent immigrants. The school, with flags from 42 countries lining its entryway, had a unique mission: Take some of the most vulnerable students in Boston's public school system, get them to graduate from high school, and go to college.
Next week , every senior at the Jamaica Plain school will graduate. All 35 have been accepted to college, most to four-year universities. They have beaten bleak odds stacked against them: Nearly a quarter of the city's students whose first language is not English never graduate from high school.
Boston International High succeeded because it addressed students' every need, students said. Their teachers, counselor and headmaster often acted as surrogate parents. They found students after-school jobs and temporary housing. They helped prepare them for college entrance exams and took them on college visits. Many teachers, immigrants themselves, empathized with the students' struggles.
"Before you can even teach someone science, history, math, you need to know all the challenges they're facing," said Oscar Santos , the school's headmaster.
Some Boston educators initially questioned the wisdom of segregating non-English speakers in the 180-student school. But specialists on immigrant education from around the nation hold up the holistic approach of Boston International as an example other cities should follow. Educators from Australia, Venezuela, Spain, and England have visited the school to see how to duplicate it.
The school's close attention to students' personal challenges is rare, educators said. The students are particularly at risk because they're older and have to simultaneously learn a new language and advanced academic material. These students in the past would have been dispersed among the city's 38 high schools. Some would have been placed in English language programs. Some might have received scant help.
The key at Boston International, Santos said, has been finding teachers willing to go well beyond their job description.
Jimmy Georges , a student from Haiti, came to Boston to live with his older sister and help support his parents, a policeman and hairdresser respectively, back home. He works at a Kentucky Fried Chicken.
"I didn't have no mommy and daddy to support me," he said. "Sometimes I look at myself and I'm proud of myself because I'm going to get my high school diploma."
Georges's schooling was nearly derailed last year when a stray bullet grazed his forehead as he was traveling in a car on Blue Hill Avenue.
After the shooting, he rarely ventured outside his home except to go to school. In class, he was distracted, and his grades plummeted.
"My body was in school but my mind wasn't really there," Georges said.
He met regularly with a counselor and scaled back his academic schedule. He frequently argued with the headmaster, who wanted him to make up his work after school.
"He was always fussing me, pushing me to move on," said Georges, 18, who improved his grades this year and earned a scholarship to Bunker Hill Community College.
Marlene Miranda , a senior from Cape Verde, initially balked at attending Boston International when her father dropped her off at the school, a red brick building attached to a playground. A former elementary school with no gym or athletic fields, Boston International did not fit Miranda's image of an American high school.
She was so intimidated on the first day that she refused to say her name when the teacher asked. But she soon appreciated the school's small size, warm atmosphere, and high expectations.
Teachers handed out their cellphone numbers and encouraged students to call for help. They came early and stayed late, tutoring students and helping them revise essays. They held optional classes on Saturdays, partnering with faculty members from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
When 18-year-old Miranda was accepted to Bridgewater State, the headmaster and college counselor called the university and got her a $15,000-a-year scholarship because her family could not afford the tuition.
"Nobody thought I would make it," said Miranda. "I never even thought I'd go to college. Back home, you don't have the opportunity to be what you want. If I go back, I'm a nobody."
The toughest road at the school has been for students who are in the country without proper documentation. They do not qualify for financial aid, and, like Miranda, cannot afford college on their own.
In January, a 20-year-old from Guatemala and six of his classmates met with an immigration lawyer at school to discuss their college options and the process of getting their green cards.
The student, who does not want his name published for fear of repercussions, came to the United States for work to support his parents, who stayed behind in their farming village. He had only attended school until the sixth grade in Guatemala, and enrolled at Boston International initially to meet other teens and to learn English to find a better job.
Instead, he said, he found a second family in supportive teachers and classmates -- and motivation. The headmaster told him that his lack of schooling did not dictate his intelligence, and he expected the teen to graduate.
He was among a group of students who were not that literate in their native languages. They received intensive instruction in English upon their arrival.
Ada Sepulveda, who teaches English to newcomers, requires them to choose a book to read every night from the elementary-level books filling baskets in her classroom.
"They know we were supposed to have done this yesterday, last week, last year," Sepulveda said. "There's an urgency."
In every class, teachers incorporate mini-English lessons. Posters plaster the classroom of math teacher Apolinario Barros to remind students of the words and symbols for subtraction, division, and other terms.
The Guatemalan student will graduate despite several hardships. His father died in a car accident in Guatemala two years ago. The day after he found out, the student returned to school, which raised more than $700 to help his mother pay for the funeral.
He never skipped a day this year as he juggled a 32-hour-a-week job at a restaurant in Jamaica Plain. He failed the English MCAS four times, but his math teacher and headmaster told him he would succeed if he worked hard. And Santos spoke with the teen's boss about allowing him to stay after school for extra help.
Two months ago, he passed the state exam, a graduation requirement.
"Anything that happens, I can take it," the student said later. "I didn't expect to be all the way here. I want to see how far I can go."
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