Graduating ASAP, if Not on State Timeline

At T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, the on-time graduation rate for Hispanic students was 57 percent, compared with 76 percent for blacks, 87 percent for whites and 91 percent for Asians.

Ingris Moran, 17, a senior at T.C. Williams, is on track to graduate, but she said she knows many Latino students who struggle. Her older sister, she said, dropped out as a junior.

"They feel they are not getting encouraged enough. They feel like nobody has high expectations of them," she said. "Teachers worry if you pass their tests or their final exams, but they don't have conversations with you personally about what you want to do in life."

She and other students have been working with Tenants and Workers United, a grass-roots organization in Alexandria, to create a plan for the school system to increase student success. It calls for academic advisers to work with students and their parents to create individualized courses of study.

Alexandria Superintendent Morton Sherman said he and the School Board already had been moving in that direction.

"These are real kids with distinct needs, so let's create distinct programs," he said.

Next year, Virginia and other states will release a five-year graduation rate, which still will not capture the complete picture but will include students such as Lara. When he did not graduate on time, the 18-year-old enrolled in a dual program at the school that lets him receive credits from Northern Virginia Community College.

"I know I'm doing good," Lara said. "Out of all my friends, I'm the first one to go to college. . . . Some got their GEDs. Some just didn't even bother. There are some that are still in school but they are two or three years behind."

Still, the strain of his carefully balanced days can be seen in a tattooed rosary that wraps around his right wrist.

Asked about it, he looks down at the cross imprinted just above his thumb, and pauses. "I will once in a while pray to God to make everything better," he said, "to make my life a little easier."