Running head: SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM & LIBERATION

Sharing to Give Freedom and Liberation

Nancy Murad
Jaynee Mendez
Alma Ramirez
Catalina Pacheco
Pacific Oaks College
HD 361 Social & Political Context of Human Development
December 14, 2015

SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

Table of Contents
Introduction..3
History..4
Methodology....5
Statistics...9
Solutions11
Conclusion.12
References..14

SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

Sharing to Give Freedom and Liberation

Education is an option or a must for some people and others it is not. Some people dream
about finishing their higher education and others just want to leave school and start working.
Whether a person completes his/her education or not, education is a way to liberate individuals
from ignorance and poverty, which cannot be denied. A phenomenal writer Paulo Freire stated in
his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed:
Liberation is thus a childbirth and a painful one. The man or woman who emerges is a
new person. Viable only as another way, the solution of this contradiction is born in the
labor which brings into the world this new being; no longer oppressor nor longer
oppressed, but human in the process of achieving freedom (Friere, 1979, p. 49).
As mentioned by Friere, the process of liberation is a very important process because in this
modern time to obtain freedom is to obtain education. As our group (Nancy Murad, Jaynee
Mendez, Alma Ramirez, and Catalina Pacheco) understands the importance of education, we
decided to help students from a local high school (Garfield High School) pay for their graduation
fees. Attending ones own graduation is a documentation of achievement; our group advocacy
believes that these students deserve attending their culmination ceremony like any other student.
Our group chose Garfield High School because Catalina suggested this school is in need
for some help. Catalina herself attended this school in 2003, which helped her educational
journey because she needed to obtain a GED certificate in order to attend college. James A.
Garfield High School helped Catalina achieve her goal and prepared her for East Los Angeles
Community College. She suggested that it is very important to help low income students in
Garfield, so they will continue in their higher education. It is a wonderful way to give back to the
community.

SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

In working on our advocacy project, our goals are first help the students feel proud of
themselves that they have finished the first step in their educational ladder. Second, we intend to
find out the reasons behind the low rates for the Latino community in finishing high schools and,
therefore, obtaining a college degree. We would like to study furthermore the underlining causes
of the high school dropout rates and how does the history of family education affect their
childrens graduation level.
History
When looking at Garfield High Schools history, we learned that the school was founded
in 1925 in East Los Angeles, an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County, California. From
the 1930s through the 1950s, Garfield High School was predominantly white. However, since the
1960s, the majority of student body has been Latino. The school had a total of 4620 students and
in the 2005-2006 school year; 99.26% of the students were identified as Latino (James A.
Garfield High School, n. d.).
The expectation the board of education have towards the students from Garfield High
School is low. For example, when eighteen students from Garfield High School passed the
advanced placement calculus test in 1982, the board suspected cheating and required the students
to retake the examination. Further testing showed that the students had actually learned the
material. This incident is an example of the assumption society has regarding someones
ethnicity or race. If these eighteen students were from a white predominant school, the
assumption will not be built, as Johnson explained, whites can succeed without other people
being surprised (Johnson, 2006, p. 27). In this case, it was not being surprised, but suspicion.
This same school was the home of some notable people in the community such as Alexander
Gonzales (president at Sacramento State University), George Ramos (Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist for the Los Angeles Times), and Esteban Edward Torres (Former congress member

SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

from California and former United States Ambassador to the UNISCO). And many more notable
people, which proves that this school that contains the majority of low income Latino students
are able to produce to the community some important figures, after all skin color does not matter.
Methodology
As mentioned previously, we were introduced to Garfield High School and this idea of
helping low income students through Catalina Pacheco because her children are students at the
high school, she saw the need of the students. We were introduced to a parent coordinator from
the high school, which works with the parents. She mentioned that many of these students are
from low-income families who are unable to pay for their student fees.
In order for us to understand more about the population, we needed more data. As a
group, we decided that our best method of collecting the data for our advocacy project was by
conducting an interview with the counselor at Garfield High School. We wanted to interview the
person who supports the low-income students and families and who would be able to provide us
with all the information we needed. Our group advocacy felt that meeting in person with the
counselor would be much more appropriate than an interview over the phone because one is able
to see the actual dynamic interaction between the student and the counselor.
Here are the questions we prepared for our interview with the counselor at James A.
Garfield High:
1. How will this program benefit the students who cannot afford to pay for their student
fees?
2. How are these students chosen for this program?
3. How do you verify the students income status?
4. What happens if those students do not have the money to attend their own graduation,
and do not have anyone to help them? What can the school do at that point?

SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

5. What happens to these students after they attend their graduation? Do you keep in touch
with them?
6. How does the school influence the students to continue their education and not give up on
themselves?
7. What resources do you offer graduating students to pursue their education?
The counselors name is Bianca Napoles, she is in charge of the pupil services, and
attendance counselor among other hats she wears at her job. One that she holds dear to her
heart is her service as a homeless liaison. Bianca has worked with the LAUS District with
Garfield High for five years, through her five years she has come across many students from
low-income families. When students come to Bianca with their low-income paper work, she
refers them to local resources for adequate help. Bianca and the parent coordinator, Rosie, work
together with these students, out of five hundred students; they work with an average of one
hundred students. This year they have been in a constant contact with a total of fourteen students.
The counselor and the parent coordinator choose these students not only because they qualify as
low-income, but rather for their life situation. For example, a student who comes from a single
parent household and his mother needs to work every day just to provide for her family. Being
the oldest, the student often faces the fact that he has to become the babysitter, thus, affecting
attendance, and, therefore, affecting his performance at school. As mentioned in Lives on the
Edge by Valerie Polakow:
"Many mothers who attempts to support their families can find only part-time or personal
work, and encounter severe child care problems of their children are young. Women often
become casual secondary-sector workers, ineligible for unemployment and health
insurance benefits by virtue of their low wages and part-time work" (Polakow, 1993,
p. 61).

SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

When a student loses his/her parents and has to move with a relative more than three
miles away from the school, the LAUS District provides them with free TAP card for commuting
to and from the school. As a school district, it is their duty to ensure that the students arrive to
school, hence, encouraging their education in conjunction with targeting the low-income
families.
Students at James A. Garfield High School who are unable to pay for their graduation,
their families are very humble and they will not ask for help. Not only that they will not ask for
help, parents are also unaware that the school can help them with their graduation fees. This
struggle will eventually lead these students to a high dropout rate, unknowingly, that they
deserve to be rewarded for their achievement. When they dropout, the students most likely will
look for a job to assist their families financially. When the school provides the financial support
along with other resources, the students self-esteem elevates and their confidence sore because
they are not dragged by the burden of student fees.
Another form of choosing these students is by their low attendance that correlates to their
mental health issues, medical issues, or poverty. In addition to the low attendance, many students
have lost both parents by deportation or sudden death leaving the student as an orphan. The
students do not share their stories or struggles from the beginning with the coordinator and the
counselor, so the coordinator and the counselor have to build a bridge with compassion and
understanding, so families can outreach them. The students benefit from the schools resources
by the connection between counselor and parent coordinator. Rosie, the parent coordinator, is the
person who raises funds for these students. Besides, identifying low-income families, Rosie asks
the counselor to choose five students who need the support. At the end, students whose fees are
paid are because of the amount that Rosie was able to raise. This is where our advocacy group

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comes in to help with fundraising to support these students future education by elevating their
self-esteem and confidence.
After graduating from James A. Garfield High School, many of these students continue
their education and often keep in touch with their counselors, teachers, and the principal because
of the close connection between the faculties and students. For example, last year one of their
students, who was a very humble person and always willing to help others, despite, the fact that
her family was struggling, benefited from all the donations and resources available to her. She
was accepted to Cal Poly Pomona, but was confronted with a challenge. Her mother told her it
was best for her to find a job to help the family and later continue with her education. Many of
the faculty members encouraged her to continue her education. Her final decision was to apply
somewhere close to be with her family and help with the financial support.
Garfield High School offers resources to students who are linked through CalWORKs
assisting them with job experience through local agencies, which they eventually can refer to on
their resume. Furthermore, Garfield students are also offered a program through East Los
Angeles College to pursue their education during and after high school. This program is called
High School Concurrent Enrollment.
Concurrent enrollment is a program that allows high school students to simultaneously
earn college or vocational credit toward a postsecondary diploma, certificate, or degree.
The dual enrollment program is an opportunity to take challenging courses and accelerate
education opportunities. Students who successfully complete dual enrollment courses will
save time toward their college degree and save money with free tuition and textbooks
(How do I enroll in East Los Angeles College?, n. d.).

SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

Statistics
According to statistics from the National Research Council (US), Latinos compared to all
other groups in the United States are the least educated, a quarter of the Latino adults have a
ninth grade or lower level of education. Some of the reasons that Latino children struggle to
continue their education or even perform well are the following: First, childhood experiences are
very important, as statistics shows that Latino children are unlikely to be read to when they are
young. Second, if Spanish is the only language spoken at home, parents are less likely to engage
the children in any activities involving literacy. Finally, the economic barriers have the biggest
impact on childrens ability to perform well in school (Martinez, Ownes, & Schhneider, 2006).
Children of the first generation immigrant Latino families perform poorly in schools
compared to children of second-generation immigrants. In addition, we cannot ignore the fact
that teachers sometimes have assumptions about children from Latino or any other ethnicity,
which in turns affects their academic performance. The above reasons will most likely continue
to be a problem for the Latino students in society, according to National Assessment of
Educational Progress explains, Latino students continue to lag behind non-Latino whites and
that the differences in average reading scores between Latino and non-Latino white students are
evident, and this pattern is consistent across Latino subgroups (Martinez, Ownes, & Schhneider,
2006). Also according to Patricia Gandara in her article titled Special Topic/ the Latino
Education Crises, from the first day of kindergarten to their last day of school, Latinos, on
average, perform far below of their peers (Gandara, 2010).
The question is, is the reason behind the poor performance of the Latino students and the
inability to finish schooling the segregation of these communities? The evidence shows that as
many as 60% of Latino students are part of these segregated schools, which in turns affect their
ability to engage with students from the mainstream. In these cases, students lack the ability to

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understand the importance of education and what is the expectation that the society build
according to ones level of education (Gandara, 2010). The inability to be part of the mainstream
programs and be limited to dual language program allows the gap between Latino student and
others to become wider.
When researching Garfield High School statistics of parents level of education, our
group found that 46% of the parents did not graduate from high school, 38% were high school
graduates, and only 4% were college graduates. These statistics agree with the National Research
Council (US) statistics of the level of education of the Latino parents. The statistics of the
graduate students from Garfield High School shows that 85% of the students graduate, this
shows that parents and resources are able to help these students finish their high school, and,
eventually, attend college (James A. Garfield High School, n. d.).

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According to the above graph (Cook, 2015), the rate of high school dropout is statistically
declining, but the Latino students still have the highest rate of high school dropout compared to
other ethnicities. The percentage shows that resources are still needed for those students from the
Latino community, who are unable to finish their high school education. The graph shows the
huge gap between the other ethnicities and the Latino students, the gap is declining, but the hope
is that there will be no gap and that the Latino students have the same opportunities to finish their
education.
Solutions
Some of the things that we can do to help these students is fundraising, ask for donations,
and try to get more people involved to spread the word. We have created a Facebook page, which
we believe is a great way to make people aware of the situation and what is happening at school.
This way we can also find alumni from Garfield High School, which we hope that they will give
back to the school to help the students succeed with their future. Another thing that we can do to
help these students is to write letters to judges, lawyers, local churches, and county offices
explaining to them that we are an advocacy group that is trying to fundraise as much money for
Garfield High School. We can also share the news with our co-workers and for those of us that
work at schools, family daycares, or pre-schools and even to the parents, who may be willing to
help us with any sort of donations.
How can we help the students in the future is to continue having the Facebook page,
spreading the word to people. We believe that the more people know about our advocacy group,
the more people will want to participate and help us fundraise. We can also have another Go
Fund Me page, so people can donate money to students for their caps and gowns. Having a Go
Fund Me page will benefit the students because people are free to donate any amount of money.
This fundraising program will benefit the students if it started at the beginning of the semester

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because every donation counts. Making flyers (as a future idea) is another way to spread the
news about the students graduation fund. This way our group can reach local business and
individuals in the community where we wouldnt have been able to reach otherwise. The
students can have a stand selling potato chips, water, sodas, candies etc. where they can finance
their caps and gowns.
Conclusion
From our group advocacy research, we learned that society builds assumptions about the
Latino community such as they couldnt excel in their education. Our group learned that the
parents level of education plays a major role of their childrens ability to pursue a higher
education. We learned that the income of the family has an effect on childrens ability to finish
their education, these students need to work and support their families, or become a babysitter
for younger siblings while their parents are at work. We learned that the community plays a
major role in providing resources as we saw in Garfield High School, the counselor and the
parents coordinator created an outreach program for these students who are very shy or did not
even know that the community can and will help them.
Working in a group was a great experience; we all took part in the process of creating this
project and making it work. We divided the work among ourselves and everyone carried her part
very well. We understood each others busy life and schedule and we did not try to put pressure
on anyone. The project went very well and the fund account is now active. We decided to keep it
open at least till February, so the hope is to have more funds for the students to attend their
graduation. We were able to collect more information from the counselor and the parents
coordinator and the interview was perfect for our group because they were able to give us
individualized examples of students that they were able to help. The Facebook account is active

SHARING TO GIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERATION

and we hope that it stays active, so that people will hear more about the school and will be
willing to give back to the community.

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References
Cook, L. (2015, August 31). Some stats for your back-to-school Monday. U.S. News. Retrieved
from http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/08/31/some-stats-for-yourback-to-school-monday
Freire, P. (1979). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY. Continuum.
Gandara, P. (2010). Special topic / The Latino education crisis. Educational Leadership, 67(5),
24-30. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership
/feb10/vol67/num05/The-Latino-Education-Crisis.aspx
How do I enroll in East Los Angeles College? (n.d.) Retrieved from https://www.elac.edu
/currentstudents/studentservices/hsri/faq.htm#top
James A. Garfield High School. (n. d.). Retrieved from http://www.garfieldhs.org/
Johnson, A. (2006). Privilege, power, and difference. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
Martinez, S., Ownes, A., and Schhneider, B. (2006). Barriers to educational opportunities for
Hispanics in the United States. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK
19909/
Polakow, V. (1993). Lives on the edge: Single mothers and their children in the other America.
Chicago, IL. The University of Chicago Press.