Hispanic Baptist leaders become education advocates

AUSTIN—Although thousands of Texas students fail in high school each year, success still is possible for these students. That’s what more than 25 Texas Hispanic Baptist leaders discovered during an education advocacy day in Austin hosted by the Texas Baptist Hispanic Education Initiative and the Christian Life Commission.

Hispanic leaders learned the reasons student drop out of school and ways churches can help students succeed in meeting educational goals.

“It’s not about being brown, black or white or about living in a barrio, inner city or suburb,” said Gus Reyes, director of the Texas Baptists Hispanic Education Initiative. “It’s about missing five days in the first 100 days of class or failing a class in that period. Approximately 85 percent of ninth graders falling into this category drop out of high school. It’s a trend that begins early in school. We have students from all groups and backgrounds dropping out.”

Sylvia Acevedo, chief executive officer of Communicard and organizer of the largest Spanish language education advocacy event in the nation held in Los Angeles, presented education dropout information based on research done at the University of Chicago.

“Two things she said that were interesting is there are two factors that can tell you within the first semester of a student’s freshman year and it has nothing to do with ethnicity or socio-economic level,” said Jesse Rincones, pastor of Alliance Church in Lubbock. “If they missed more than five classes or failed a class within that first semester, then they were more likely to drop out of high school. As simple as those two things are, I think those are two things churches can help with.”

Victor Rodriguez, president of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas and pastor of South San Filadelphia Church in San Antonio, said the advocacy day helped him realize the importance of local church interaction in education, as well as involvement on the associational and state level.

“We know the need, and I think that the vehicle has to be the church,” Rodriguez said. “We as pastors must preach and hold our young people to a high standard. This will not only change the economics of Texas, but it will change the churches in Texas. This will change the quality of ministers and missions in our church. We must expose people to the need, letting them know that these needs are here now but they will be so much greater in 30 years from now.”