Our Boys and Girls Are Statistics
Yolo County has an abhorrent high school drop out rate for its students. 51% of the African American, 45% of the Native American, 48% of the Latinos and 31% of the White community drop out of high school. Stats from California Postsecondary Education Commission.
A study done at UC Santa Barbara, and covered by the Los Angeles Times in an article they published in September 2009, showed that high school dropouts are four times more likely to get arrested and eight times more likely to be jailed than youths who graduate from high school. The study concluded that if the total drop out rate in California was cut in half, there would be a 30,000 reduction in juvenile crimes, saving the State approximately $500 million per year.
We believe that more important than the costs savings from a decline in crime or a reduction in jailed youths, is that there is the real potential that the boys and girls who go through our program will enter the world as men women who will in turn mentor changes to future generations of at risk youth. Thus, we will see the breaking of a cycle of our underserved youth just being another negative statistic.
