/ Modified sep 6, 2019 3:45 p.m.

Higher graduation rates uplift Nogales Unified School District

Lorraine Rivera gets an inside look at the district's approach.

School districts across Arizona face many of the same hurdles related to funding and teacher retention. Lorraine Rivera visited Nogales High School and learned more about how the Nogales Unified School District has managed to overcome those obstacles to boast one of the state’s highest graduation rates. It has a 98% graduation rate compared to the state average of 77%. Rivera spoke to educator Eliza Lopez and superintendent Fernando Parra about the district’s approach in the classroom.

“We also have a monitoring system,” Parra said. “If a student is absent from school, we call the parents automatically, immediately, to see why the student was not in school. And so that goes from kindergarten all the way to the higher levels to the graduation.”

Parra also described a benefit of growing up along the border is that many students are bilingual and biliterate in English and Spanish.

“By the time they finish high school they can dominate two languages,” Parra said.

Arizona 360
Arizona 360 airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on PBS 6 and Saturdays at 8 p.m. on PBS 6 PLUS. See more from Arizona 360.
By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona