Teachers at Owatonna’s Alternative Learning Center want to let Latino high school students know that college is an option for them.
ALC math teacher Cassie Wipperfurth and science teacher Adam Ansorge took 15 students on Thursday to the fifth annual Latino Engineering Academic Day at the University of Minnesota, Mankato. The students toured the campus, learned about the college’s engineering program and listened to Latino speakers discuss their childhoods and careers as engineers.
It was the second straight year Owatonna students attended the day-long event. Last year, seven signed up. This year, the number doubled. While more and more students are interested in touring a local college campus, Wipperfurth knows few will actually register for college. A trend she, and other teachers of Latino students, want to change.
“All 15 probably won’t go,” she said. “The goal to start off with is maybe one or two, the next year, two or three, then a little bit more every year. These 15 students may not have been exposed to college life or been on a college visit. Now, they can say they have been on a college visit.”
Wipperfurth, who has been teaching in the Owatonna school district for six years, said Latino students who went last year were excited to go back.
“I put this out again this year, and the older students who went last year said they would like to go again. Some of the other students were a little leery, but we were able to get more to go,” she said. “Hopefully, next year we will get even more to go because it’s a fun day.”
Teri Preisler, the district’s associate director of instructional technology, said she was pleased that Wipperfurth and Ansorge put the trip together for the Latino students.
“Opportunities like this may just be the experience that opens the minds and doors for a student,” Preisler said. “Our district has really focused on closing the achievement gap across multiple groups of students: racial or ethnic, special service programs and socio-economic factors as well as improving instruction and learning for all students.”
While the students consider themselves to be Latino, their results from statewide testing fall into the Hispanic category. Four years ago, poor Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) scores from Hispanic students kept Willow Creek Intermediate School from reaching Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards. In recent years, Owatonna has worked hard to decrease the achievement gap and increase MCA test scores for its Hispanic students.
Preisler said the Owatonna school district has made positive gains in decreasing the achievement gap in reading. In the past five years, the percentage of Hispanic students meeting proficiency on the state MCA reading test has improved from 41.5 percent in 2008 to 49.4 percent in 2012 — an improvement of 7.9 percent.