Local CYFAR Program Spotlight

Technology Mentoring Reaches Latino Youth
in Washington County, Oregon

Confronted with an 86% high school dropout rate in 1996, authorities in Washington County, Oregon, marshaled a full frontal assault. The Oregon State University Extension Service conducted surveys, focus groups, interviews with dropouts, conferred with all relevant authorities and came up with a response: a mentoring program to help at-risk students and their families to envision a successful future career and a program to help them get there.

Most of the dropouts came from immigrant families in which few had completed even an elementary-level education. Spanish speakers, they had been attracted to western Washington County by agricultural and service jobs. In this particular segment of the Latino population, girls are expected to marry after their quinceañera (fifteenth birthday celebration) and have children soon after that. Most teenage boys are expected to work to earn money for the family. These traditions, along with low family income, contribute to the challenges of keeping the youth in school until they graduate.

The committee determined that a mentoring program was the best way to help these youth envision a future outside of agricultural or service work. But without the support of their families, students would probably stay away. So not only did the students need mentors to foster a desire to stay in school, but the families needed to be convinced that education beyond age 15 was desirable. This meant changing cultural attitudes – a tall order indeed, and an issue that may never disappear completely.

Lisa Conroy, OSU Extension agent, said a key early hire made all the difference. Using CYFAR money in 1996, she hired Cecilia Girón, a local Latina who had not only graduated from the local high school, but also completed a two-year college degree. “It seems obvious now, but that was unusual then,” Conroy said. “We now know that you must make sure the youth can ‘see’ themselves in the faces of their mentors and program staff. It is not enough to speak the language; they must relate.” Girón not only looked and talked like her population, parents felt comfortable with her because they saw her as a good role model for young Latinas. Ten years later, Girón is still there, and more staff have been added.

Youth use GIS/ GPS for a watershed restoration study.

Another key element to the program model was the early partnership with Centro Cultural – the local community center – that resulted in a program design that involves the whole family. All families of Tech Wizard youth are invited to participate in monthly workshops to help them understand what the youth are experiencing and how to best support them. Families also have the opportunity to increase their own computer skills.

Simultaneous with hiring came development of the learning model. They asked referred youth what they wanted to learn about, believing that interest would foster participation. It did, and in the early days the number-one request was creating Web pages, so the group became known as the 4-H Web Wizards.

Then came a next stumbling block. It seems quaint now, but in 1996, school officials were suspicious of allowing students to create Web pages in school. Web page design was sometimes confused with computer hacking. In order to get the program into the schools, Conroy said she had to promise a one-on-one mentor-to-student ratio. The clincher was when she got Intel involved – schools were more receptive once they knew that this respected large local employer would support the program in the form of volunteers and equipment.

Since then the group has garnered the support of other large employers. Portland General Electric, Hewlett Packard and IBM have donated equipment and provided volunteer mentors to come to the schools during the hours of 2:30 to 5 p.m. when the group meets. Up to 20 professional volunteers have been involved at one time, although the number has now shrunk due to business pressures at these companies.

Parents began to see the payoff when the youth had learned enough Web skills to offer their services to paying clients: in the days when schools began to see the need for their own Web sites, a few in Washington County hired Web Wizard students to design them. That was a big step for families to envision the value of computer skills for future work. The Oregon Historical Society is a partner, working with youth on documentary-making through podcasting, which can be used for language arts or senior projects in the schools.

True to the original model, the content of the program changes with participants’ interests and trends in technology. In addition to Web pages, the students took on digitized music, photography, video, and digital image editing. Video served the additional purpose of engaging the parents. “The parents had no understanding of the technology, so that affected support. Video was a little closer to what they understood,” Conroy said.

After that, GIS/GPS became popular. The Tech Wizards, as they renamed themselves, participated in a service project for the Hillsboro Fire Department, creating a map of the locations of trained CERT (Community Emergency Response Team, a FEMA-approved disaster response certification) volunteers so that the fire department could identify areas where more training was needed. The youth also participated in CERT training, and are helping to transfer that knowledge to Spanish-speaking families and communities. Utilizing a grant from ESRI, the Intel 4-H Tech Wizards, as they are now known, are helping the City of Hillsboro inventory 12,000 street trees to qualify as a “Tree City USA”.

The technologies that the youth choose to learn are still cutting edge. These days, they are using wikis to collaborate, an online podcasting tool called Voice Thread, and another called Game Maker. All are free downloads. Operating in true Web 2.0 fashion, Conroy said the tools are all Web-based, not place-based, allowing them to be used anywhere. The youth in Equipo Verde (Green Team), an offshoot of Tech Wizards, create models of a nearby watershed restoration based on data gathered and shared using these tools. They do water testing, sampling the same spot over time to watch for changes, and map biodiversity. Their narrated presentations will soon be available on Voice Thread. They also use Google Earth and Sketch Up to model expected changes to the watershed in 10 years’ time.

In addition, the high school youth are mentoring elementary and middle schoolers in Lego Robotics, as well as participating in the more advanced Vex Robotics, similar to erector sets, in which students design and build complex robots from scratch, using soldering and cutting tools, for state competition. Like all Tech Wizard projects, these activities are aligned with Oregon Department of Education standards for graduation.

As impressive as these activities are however, technologies come and go – they are merely tools for discovery and communication. And although the day’s activity may be mapping biodiversity, the result is a youth who has skills and confidence in today’s workplace. All of these projects involve planning and budgeting, with an emphasis on team communication.

Having achieved a higher level of computer literacy than most of the population, these teens transfer their knowledge by helping others. They help teach basic computer skills to senior citizens at the library, and assist paid instructors teaching resume skills. “When helping adults, students are learning and becoming more work-qualified,” Conroy said. They’re also meeting people outside of their social stratus when teaching retirement-age white citizens. “These are two groups that otherwise would not have met. And they have fun together,” Conroy said.

Tech Wizards teach computer skills to seniors at the public library
as part of their service learning.

The program is locally funded through grants and fundraising activities. Over the years, it has attracted many thousands in grants and in-kind donations from private companies, foundations and various government grants, including CYFAR. Most of it has come from local organizations.

Asked whether there is an improvement in the high school dropout rate 12 years on, Conroy declines to give specifics, saying the number varies according to the source, and is politically charged. “It’s still too high,” she says. However, of the 120 youth referred to Tech Wizards every year juvenile justice authorities and high school counselors, and 200 elementary school-age children enrolled in the summers, 97.5% graduate from Tech Wizards, fully half of them girls. Seventy percent of Tech Wizard graduates have gone on to post-secondary education, usually through Portland Community College, which has a large campus nearby, and usually to study a science, engineering or technology subject.

Conroy said they have experimented a bit with weekly contact times. For eight years, the school year included a fall session with three two-hour meetings, followed by one meeting per week in the spring, and service learning in the summer. This past year, they tried something new, shifting the meeting period to once per week for two hours year-round, with summer capstone camps. This new schedule resulted in better results among graduates, but an unusually low – for them – retention rate of 90%. The leaders are now examining whether it was the model change that produced these results, or whether it is something else. Conroy says politics and negative media messages about Mexicans this year have produced turmoil within families.

Lessons learned? “We took baby steps over the past 10 years,” Conroy said. “But now we are known, and the families allow their kids to travel with us, even the girls.” Parent participation is nearly 100%, and younger siblings often join the group. She credits the Latinas on the staff with being great cultural role models for the youth and their families, as well as excellent mentors and instructors.

"These kids have to live in a multicultural world,” Conroy said. “They have to have the skills and abilities to move successfully between the home environment, the school environment, the work environment and also the online environment."

You may wish to consult:

Intel 4-H Tech Wizards

See previous Program Spotlight articles