Houston's Immigration Solution -- Education

HOUSTON, Nov. 14, 2006 — -- Twenty-two-year old Norma never thought she would earn a high school diploma. Her grandparents in Mexico couldn't afford to keep her in school once she completed the elementary grades, and she was resigned to a life of menial jobs.

A few years ago Norma saved her money, paid a smuggler to help her cross the border and ended up in Houston. Her first job: cleaning the offices of Enron at night.

She was too old to go to high school and went from one minimum wage job to another, cleaning offices and homes and working at fast-food chicken restaurants.

"When I got here I didn't have any friends," she said. "I worked at nighttime and I didn't know anybody. It was hard. It was scary."

She wanted to go to school but did not have an option that fit her schedule or her needs. Houston is a hub for immigrants, and the need to do something for others in situations like Norma's was becoming obvious to educators.

"In recent years, we were receiving more and more older-age students -- teenagers in essence -- and we knew the window of time we had with them to be successful was frankly, very brief," said Abelardo Saavedra, superintendent for the Houston Independent School District.

Something radically different was needed to service the educational needs of Houston's youth. One Houston principal noted kids were dropping through the cracks daily.

"Several years ago we were looking at students who were coming to Lee High School, then leaving us. They weren't staying. They were dropping out. We knew we had to find a way to serve them," said Steve Amstutz, principal at Lee High School on Houston's west side.

His response was to design a school within a school for students between the ages of 17 and 22 who had been living in the United States for fewer than three years, had fewer than six credits toward graduation and limited English.

Classes would be offered at night and on Saturdays, to accommodate the students' work schedules.

Saavedra agreed with Amstutz's vision, and soon after he took over Houston's school district, he gave the go ahead to the Newcomer Charter High School, which opened in January 2004..