La Habra Career Academy Students Showcase Business Skills, Enthusiasm for School
May 8th 2009
LA HABRA, CA — State Senator Bob Huff (R-Glendora), La Habra Police Chief David Hinig, Anaheim Police Chief John Welter and Fullerton Joint Union High School District Board of Trustees President Marilyn Buchi visited with students at La Habra High School’s Marketing and Business Academy today to see first-hand how career-focused education is keeping them in school and on track for graduation. Law enforcement leaders are promoting efforts to cut dropout rates and, as a result, crime rates.
“Keeping students in school and off the streets is one of the best crime-prevention strategies around,” said Chief Hinig, a member of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California – a bipartisan, anti-crime organization led by more than 400 sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys and victims of violence.
According to a report by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, if graduation rates increased by 10 percentage points, violent crime would decrease by 20 percent – preventing approximately 15 murders and more than 1,000 aggravated assaults each year in Orange County.
In 1999 La Habra High School launched its Marketing and Business Academy, which now serves 196 students. Today, Senator Huff, Chief Hinig and Chief Welter toured the Academy’s student-run store and talked with students about the value of the academy and what they plan to do after high school.
State-funded California Partnership Academies provide a school-within-a-school structure targeting students at-risk for dropping out, with a focus on integrating academic and career technical education. Academies must partner with the local community, which helps develop the career technical curriculum, provides mentors, hosts workplace field trips and offers summer and part-time jobs. La Habra High School’s academy partners with Bell, Anderson & Sanders LLC, Davenport Home Furnishings, Full Bloom Furnishings and Antiques, Automated Data Processing, Alliance Collision Body Show, Maina’s Dressings and Sauces, Aspect Software, Whittier College of Law, and Concordia University.
“Kids who have opportunities to engage in positive activities and receive support from their communities are much more likely to succeed in school and stay away from crime,” said Chief Welter.
Career academies, like this one, make a difference because they get students interested and excited about school by helping them see the connection between what they learn in the classroom and their future careers. In 2008, 96% of seniors enrolled in La Habra High School’s Marketing and Business Academy graduated. Of those, 75% planned to go directly into a 4-year or community college.
“We truly value and are grateful for our community partnerships. In the FJUHSD, we are committed to finding ways to make education exciting and relevant to our students,” said Buchi. “In all of our district schools, we offer numerous career technical classes (unfortunately not all partnership academies), many as part of our joint powers ROP (Regional Occupational Program). The statistics on student success through these classes reach into areas well beyond attendance and crime reduction.”
Research shows that career academies reduce high school dropouts by one third. However, fewer than one in four California high schools, and just one in five high schools in Orange County, run a state-funded partnership academy.
Ensuring that students graduate from high school is good for the economy as well. Studies show that every year’s worth of dropouts cost the state $46 billion over their lifetimes – those are costs associated with crime, welfare, healthcare and lost taxes.
As the 2009-2010 legislative season gets under way, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids members will continue advocating for investments that help reduce dropout rates, such as California Partnership Academies, quality preschools and a statewide educational data collection system that will help improve graduation rates and other student outcomes by identifying both students at risk of dropping out and effective interventions.
To see the organization’s complete legislative agenda, please contact Jennifer Ortega at jortega@calfightcrime.org.
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Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California is a bipartisan, non-profit, anti-crime organization led by more than 400 sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys, and victims of violence. Its mission is to take a critical look at the research about what really works to keep kids from becoming criminals. Among the strategies proven to be effective are preschool, after-school, dropout-prevention, child abuse and neglect prevention programs, and intensive interventions for juvenile offenders.
