Graduation requirements may be affecting Santa Rosa students’ mental health, school safety, educators say

Campus stabbings. Fights in schools across the district. Kids arrested with knives. Lockdown after lockdown.

As educators, parents and activists across Santa Rosa City Schools have been trying to get to the root cause, many are asking themselves why students are acting out in such violent ways. And if it’s a mental health crisis, what is the cause?

Teachers who picketed for school safety on the frosty Monday morning of Dec. 11 were consistent in drawing a connection between violent campus culture and declining mental health and the shortcomings in the district mandatory college-prep requirements.

Those requirements, known as “A-G for All,” are untenable and demoralizing for many, they say, especially the students the program was created to benefit.

John Cortopassi, a U.S. History teacher of 36 years at Santa Rosa High who attended the rally against school violence, said he was one of many teachers who believed A-G was going to be detrimental to students from the beginning.

“Many of these kids, when they get to be sophomores, they realize ‘I have no chance of graduating.’ And then it's like, ‘I don't want to be in class, so why put the effort in?’” he said.

Teachers and counselors across Santa Rosa City Schools argued that the graduation requirements make earning a high school diploma unnecessarily difficult, leading to low morale, high dropout rates and gang recruitment.

Many of the students falling behind are good kids, said Jim LaFrance, who has taught math at Montgomery High for 29 years. However, they came into high school already lacking the skills to thrive in certain classes such as algebra.

“And the foundation is so weak, so they start at this point where there's not even a reason to try anymore because they're so beat down, and that's where you run into trouble; they give up and then they just sit there,” he said.

Anthony Flores, a senior at Santa Rosa High, spoke to the learning environment in his earlier courses, saying it’s obvious to see that students are either succeeding or they’re failing.

“It’s a huge gap between A students and F students,” Flores said. “It’s either you’re passing or you’re failing.”

Often, students are failing multiple classes, and schools may not have enough resources to fully support the growing population of these kids.

“And who’s outside the hallways during class?” La France asked. “Kids that don't want to go to class because they're not passing their classes,” he answered.

As students fall behind on their grades, they are no longer eligible to join sports teams or extracurriculars outside of school. As they try to recover their credits and retake classes, there’s often no longer any room in their schedule for Career Technical Education classes or electives.

“You see kids that would otherwise be motivated by football or basketball or baseball or whatever, now they don't have grades to be on the team,” said Jeanelle Payne, a history teacher at Montgomery. “So now that doesn't engage them. They don't get the discipline from that, they don't get the social development from that.”

Aside from sports, diploma options for students who don’t aim to attend a 4-year-college but want to pursue the performing arts or career technical education are dwindling.

“Our ArtQuest program is dying on the vine because they can’t take two periods of fine art and still meet music graduation requirements on top of if they happen to fail a class or if they have their special ed or directed studies class,” said Kris Bertsch, a counselor at Santa Rosa High. “So it's really limiting their life options.”

Struggling students who don’t feel valued academically often turn to their social lives, or join gangs, for a sense of belonging, teachers say.

“If kids are feeling hopeless, they take their eye off the prize and start the shenanigans,” said Will Lyon, a Santa Rosa High English Teacher.

Seth Geffer, a Santa Rosa High School counselor of 21 years, believes it’s a very small percentage of students.

“They’re taking Math 1 for the second time, and they realize they have no chance of graduating, so they give up on higher education and now they’re wandering around school causing trouble,” he said.

Report For America corps member Adriana Gutierrez covers education and child welfare issues for The Press Democrat. Reach her at Adriana.Gutierrez@pressdemocrat.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8531 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @alana_minkler.