Lorena Diaz and her 20-year-old twin sister, Milena, entered Meadowbrook High School three years ago when they arrived from Colombia.
They repeated their sophomore year at the Chesterfield County school. This fall, they would have been juniors for a second year because their English-language skills held them back.
But their mother, Dora Agudelo, who has been without a regular job for a year and just found out she's pregnant, asked her daughters to drop out and get jobs to help out.
Her youngest child, Julian Diaz, 17, has stopped going to school. He failed 10th grade last year and said he's struggling academically because of his limited English.
"I really want him to go to school, but if he doesn't want to, what am I going to do?" said Agudelo, 37, who has four children and lives with her second husband.
Both locally and nationwide, Hispanics have higher high school dropout rates than their white and black peers. Among the reasons given are the pressure to work and help the families, having to learn English and poverty.
Statewide, the dropout rate among Hispanics for the Class of 2009 was 19.1 percent, compared with 11.3 percent for blacks and 5.6 percent for whites, according to a recent report by the Virginia Department of Education on on-time graduation. READ FULL STORY
Comments