By Kelsey Matevish, editor

Each week, one MCHS senior eagerly awaits Saturday night. She does not go out with friends; instead, she is finally able to steal a few hours to relax after working all day.

“I feel like students think about their social life and weekends but each weekend it’s the same for me,” the senior said. “I have a lot of work to do… after work I’m really tired and just want to go to bed.”

The student, who wishes to remain anonymous, is financially independent and spends her weekends at work taking care of disabled individuals to support herself and her sister who attends Santa Rosa High School. She says she earns about $400 during each two-week pay period.

“My younger sister — I support her,” she said. “I have to work. I have to pay rent. I have to buy food.”

For the anonymous senior, paying the rent means shouldering the $400 per month bill. Groceries cost her about $100 per week.

The student moved to Santa Rosa from Mexico in 2004, although did not start to learn English until three and a half years ago. During school days, she spends most of her doing homework or taking night classes at the JC to improve her English.

Sacrifices such as hers are not uncommon to students who face financial problems. Unfortunately, this can also cause their school performance to suffer. When students must worry about their basic human needs such as food and shelter, it depletes the time and energy others devote to school work.

“Education is a luxury… if students are made to work or have uncertainty whether they will eat, homework becomes less relevant,” English teacher Paul Vanek said. Vanek first taught at Priest High School, located in rural Idaho. Many students at Priest had parents who were unemployed or susceptible to lay-offs.

“I had one student tell me that without the breakfast and lunch provided at school he probably wouldn’t have eaten that day. I know he wasn’t alone,” Vanek said. “I had students wear the same outfit three days a week.”
During his tenure at Priest, Vanek spent his own money to buy school supplies for students. Along with a few other teachers, he also purchased shoes for the basketball team.

“The school didn’t have as much money for students, so supplies were not available… you could not rely on a student to buy anything,” he said.

For freshman Patricia Rodriguez, it is a situation which is becoming more familiar—and unwelcome.
“[My dad] would always spoil me, but now it’s hard to buy things I want. Even for school, I say ‘Mom, I need new notebooks’ but she tells me to just do the best I can,”

Rodriguez’s father became sick this past October. He had cancer and died shortly after, leaving his family with little income. Her aunt died in a road collision two weeks later, adding to their grief and financial problems.

“My life was going really well to the point where my father got sick,” she said. “We’re struggling to pay rent. My mom has four kids to look after and she hasn’t worked in her whole life. Right now we don’t know where to get the money for next month’s rent.”

Rodriguez’s recent emotional and economic hardship has affected not only her home life, but also her schoolwork.
“It has affected my grades in a tremendous way,” Rodriguez said. “I’m always a good student; I’ve always had good grades. My dad used to help me study.”

Wealthier families tend to have parents with college degrees who are able to pass on their knowledge and study habits, said Associate Principal Craig Wycoff, who previously worked at Piner High School for 18 years.
At MCHS, 84 percent of parents received education beyond high school. At other district schools, the percentage is lower: Santa Rosa, 71 percent; Montgomery, 70 percent; Piner High School, 47 percent; and Elsie Allen High School, 26 percent.

Parents with financial stability can afford tutors and testing to determine if their child has a learning disability. More affluent families can reinforce what children learn during the summer by visiting museums and traveling.

In addition to claiming work experience at every high school in the district, English teacher Pam Devlin was once a single mother on welfare and often felt her economic situation hindered her from offering her children as many experiences.

“I think the desire to help your children is the same for economically disadvantaged parents, but the opportunities you are able to offer are different,” she said.

When poorer students don’t succeed academically, it can often be attributed to their personal life and economic situation.

“Some people say that API (Academic Performance Index) stands for Affluent Parent Index as a joke,” Devlin said. “There is a really strong correlation often between students who come from advantaged homes because they have more opportunities.”

In 2009, MCHS had the highest API score of 842, followed by SRHS with a score of 770, MHS with a score of 764, PHS with a score of 661 and EAHS with a score of 634. Accordingly, 79 percent of students at EAHS are classified as socioeconomically disadvantaged, the highest of any high school in the district. EAHS is followed by PHS (53 percent of students), MHS (27 percent of students), SRHS (22 percent of students) and MCHS (10 percent of students). Notably, all schools have a statistically significant number of socioeconomically disadvantaged students except MCHS.

However, while Carrillo is typically viewed as the most affluent school, Principal Mark Klick warns against assuming all MCHS students who are well off do not face significant problems at home, economic and otherwise.

“Being economically blessed isn’t the shield to everything else, drug abuse, divorce, abuse, any of that,” Klick said. “There have been multiples times at this school where there have been homeless students… abuse cases… we see all the same things that other schools see, just at different levels.”

But for some students, the setbacks simply provide them more motivation to achieve — and more reason to celebrate when they reach their goals. This past November, the anonymous senior passed the California High School Exit Exam after struggling to do so because of her English. She celebrated her achievement with a party in bilingual tutoring.
“I’m really happy because I finally passed,” she said. “I was so excited.”