David New, a 2018 graduate from North Salem High School, speaks about how he earned a diploma. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter)
David New wasn’t sure how far behind he was in school.
At the start of his senior year at North Salem High School in 2017, he assumed he was so far from graduating he would need a fifth year.
“That attests to how little I actually cared,” he said.
His classmate Andres Santa Cruz was in the same boat.
“I really didn’t have any motivation,” Santa Cruz said. “I was kind of prepared to just do it over the summer.”
Months before graduation, the two boys were called into the school office. Staff told them they were going to graduate on time and asked them to pick an adult to help.
Both chose Sarah Cowan, a social studies teacher.
New and Santa Cruz were part of an effort at North and McKay high schools to help seniors on the cusp of graduating earn a diploma by giving them an advocate – someone to monitor their progress, check in and make sure they passed the classes they needed to pass.
Cowan said being chosen was an emotional moment and made her determined to see them succeed.
“The most important piece of this was these students chose me,” she said. So she got to work, texting them relentlessly to ask if they were in class and making sure assignments were turned in.
“It probably for these gentlemen got a little annoying,” she said. The boys confirmed that it was. But it also worked.
New said he discovered school wasn’t so difficult when he cared enough to do the work.
The two were among 63 students at North and McKay who graduated following a similar push from staff mentors and advocates at their schools. District and school leaders credit the effort with improvements in both schools’ 2018 graduation rates.
Since graduating, New has worked at Game Stop and volunteered as a swim coach for North. He’s also applied for financial aid and wants to explore attending college.
Santa Cruz works nights as a security guard and plans to attend college, likely at Chemeketa Community College. He hopes to become a nurse, he said.
The effort to help students graduate largely flew under the radar of the rest of the student body, but current seniors said they’re excited to see North’s numbers improving.
Ashley Smith, a leadership student, said her parents almost didn’t let her attend North because its graduation rate was so poor. Only 68 percent of students graduated in four years in 2017.
“That’s not what we’re about. We’re trying to succeed,” she said.
Now, that number stands at 77 percent. Smith said she hopes it shows the rest of the community that North is making progress.
Smith and classmates Shania Nunez and Benjamin Garcia said they personally haven’t benefited much from the extra time set aside in the class schedule for academic coaching and career planning. Because they’re taking leadership classes, they already get many of those skills elsewhere, they said.
But they said some of their friends who could benefit from having advisors and other resources available don’t care enough to show up or get engaged.
“It’s just another class that they don’t attend,” Nunez said of the school’s advisory periods.
None were aware of the focused effort North staff put in to supporting students on the edge of not graduating, but said they were excited to learn of the effort. They like knowing their friends and classmates will be able to join them celebrating in June.
“Our graduation rate isn’t as high as our class would like it,” Nunez said.
Reporter Rachel Alexander: (503) 575-1241 or [email protected]
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
