CCSN program battles the dropout problem

Anne Hosier

Thursday, Nov. 6, 1997 | 9:43 a.m.

Last spring, 16-year-old Tiffani Dias was working 30 hours a week, attending high school full-time and struggling to find time for homework.

She didn't think her job at Home Express was giving her the kind of professional experience she would need to pursue a career in business after she graduated. But whenever Dias answered a classified ad for a job at a local company, she seemed to get the same responses:

"The position has been filled" or "You've got to be a certain age."'

Then a teacher gave her the phone number of Cip Chavez, a student counselor at the Community College of Southern Nevada. Chavez was heading a pilot program called "Learning & Earning" at CCSN, aimed at reducing Clark County's rising high school dropout rate by matching local high students with business people who could mentor them and offer them flexible jobs. Dias wasn't exactly at risk of dropping out -- she was only about a half-credit behind -- but she was having a hard time finding an appropriate job while juggling school and work. She called Chavez and enlisted in the program.

Within a week, she was granted an interview with Laura Gerber, director of business relations at Fielden Companies, a local architectural planning and design firm. Gerber sized up the teenager and decided to hire her to help with marketing. It was a decision she's never regretted.

"I looked at it two ways," Gerber says. "It would help us because we needed the help, and it was encouraging high school students to learn more about the work force."

Dropout concerns

Those were exactly the goals Chavez and other CCSN administrators had in mind when they created the program last year. They got the idea after attending a forum held last year by the United Way of Southern Nevada to address Clark County's alarming high school dropout rate.

With roughly 4,000 kids quitting school in Clark County each year, the valley's dropout rate is substantial, says Garth Winckler, president of United Way of Southern Nevada, who helped organize the forum. "We're about 30 percent higher than the national average," he says.

The phenomenon has affected the community in several ways -- some of which can be measured and some of which cannot.

According to statistics presented at the forum -- which showed that 82 percent of Nevada's prison inmates never finished high school -- there is a direct link between a lack of education and crime. And the relationship between education and future earning potential is well-known. "We estimate $28 million each year (is spent in Nevada) on welfare costs for households headed by high school drop-outs," Winckler says.

What is less well-known, however, is why so many kids continue to drop out of high school.

The findings of recent studies presented at the forum revealed some surprising facts about dropouts, who are often assumed to be below average in academic ability and have language barriers or overwhelming personal problems that prevent them from finishing school. "Around 71 percent (of dropouts) were doing OK in school (when they quit)," Winckler says. "Around 68 percent are from two-parent families ... only 4 percent left because of substance abuse." And only around 30 percent of the girls who dropped out of school did so because they were pregnant.

So what is driving the trend?

Carole Morrison, a Nevada employment services coordinator who has mentored some of the students in "Learning & Earning," thinks it's a lack of understanding about the relationship between schoolwork and future career plans.

"I find from talking with a lot of these kids that they see these big jobs out there, and they know what they want to do," she says. "But the mechanics of education and getting to that job (is less clear)."

How it works

It's that gap that Chavez is trying to bridge through the "Learning and Earning" program, which is now in its second year. Businesses that choose to mentor a student must pay the required rate of $6 per hour. The college, and private and corporate donors, cover the wages of students who end up working at one of the various departments on campus.

"The (CCSN) staff has really rallied around this program, and are really willing to take these students under their wings," Chavez says. As a result, some of the best opportunities can be found right on campus. "We have computer maintainance, computer operators, dental, automotive, printing press, culinary, the theater, administrative offices."

Many of the kids enjoy these jobs -- and their paychecks -- so much, they want to take on additional hours. But Chavez limits their work to 10 hours a week. "We don't want students to come in and work 20 or 30 hours a week," he says, "because we're not an employment program, we are a dropout prevention- education program."

Whether they work at the college or in a private business, students are linked with a mentor who can serve as a role model. Victor Flores, a Las Vegas High School senior who wants to be a chef, was paired with an instructor at CCSN's Culinary Institute. The instructor is technically Flores' boss, but often he takes time out to chat with Flores about his career plans. "We sometimes just sit down and talk."

On most weekdays, however, Flores shows up at the gleaming steel kitchens on campus at around 2:30 in the afternoon, does a half-hour of homework, then works as a cooking assistant until 5 p.m. "This program has helped me a lot," says Flores, who has an 11-month-old baby and was struggling to balance the demands of fatherhood, school and work. "It's helped me a lot to get through high school."

Like Flores, many of the students in "Learning & Earning" are bright kids who are having difficulties fitting work, school and other responsibilities into their busy schedules.

But others are simply bored with what they view as the irrelevancy of their studies at school. Rayfield Hearon, who joined the program last year when he was a senior at Horizon North, was a good student, but found school a little boring, and often failed to show up. "It wasn't that bad, but it was almost getting to that point where it was that bad."

Hearon was paired with Jesus Barela, a computer technician at CCSN. "I wasn't even thinking about going to college or anything," Hearon says. "Then I started working here and my mentor Jesse and I would sit and talk and everything, and he would instill in me to go to school ... I just grew to love working with Jesse."

Hearon says the program gave him "that push to make me want to finish school." Last year, he graduated high school, on time, and is now majoring in computer information technology at CCSN.

Such changes are not unusual, says Morrison, who is now mentoring 17-year-old Katia Olivares. "I see a spark in these kids in just a very short period of time. They almost blossom, (and become) enthusiastic and motivated."

"Mentoring is the backbone of this program," Chavez says. "These student have connected with a significant adult, and it's really made a positive difference in them."

However, showing kids that school can help them go where they want in life is an equally important aspect of "Learning & Earning."

"One of the things I think this program is doing for the kids is (showing) a relationship between education and employment," she adds. "This program seems to highlight the value of education and how it applies to their future careers and lives."

Success story

Of the 30 seniors who took part in the program last year, 21 made up their credit deficiencies and graduated high school. Two who didn't graduate have rejoined the program as fifth-year seniors, and several more are now employed full-time, Chavez says.

Dias is on track to graduate this year, and has proven herself to be a valuable asset to the firm that hired her. "She's a very determined young woman," Gerber says. "She gets things done quickly."

As Dias sits in her glassed-in office, answering the telephone and sorting mail, she appears far more articulate and mature than her 17 years.

"I'm very privileged to have a job like this. A lot of my friends work at Burger King, or they don't even have a job," she says. "This is a job that relates to what I want to do ... and knowledge is basically what I'm looking for."

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