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Sal Castro Day at Savanna High School |
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Savanna was fortunate enough to have activist Sal Castro on our
campus on March 27 and April 1, 2009.
I would like
to give you a synopsis of a civil rights leader that came to Savanna High School
this week and last to speak to students and parents on how to improve their
lives using education as the means. Sal Castro, a life long educator, is well
known for his role in the 1968 “Blowouts” – student protests against unequal
conditions at schools throughout the Southern California area.
Sal
Castro’s activism and commitment to improving educational opportunities for
Mexican-American students span his entire career. As a graduate student at LA
State, he and other graduate students on the Mexican-American Education
Committee developed recommendations for improving education to the Los Angeles
Board of Education which were mostly ignored. Ongoing meetings with
Mexican-American college students resulted in a network of educational activists
and the formation of the Mexican-American Youth Leadership Conference. The first
conference, sponsored by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, took
place in 1963. Castro still organizes and presents these conferences now known
as the Chicano Youth Leadership Conferences, Inc.
Sal Castro has been
honored by numerous organizations and was invited to the White House to receive
a presidential award from former President Bill Clinton for community service.
He was also recognized for his volunteer community involvement by former First
Lady Laura Bush. Castro has been invited to lecture at colleges and universities
through the United States and is a popular keynoter and motivational historian
at youth conferences throughout California.
He spoke to both students
and parents about the unfortunate truth that Mexicans-American students lead the
nation in 3 categories:
- Highest High school Drop out rate
-
Highest teen pregnancy rate
- Highest Dropout rate amongst college
students
The events with Sal Castro were extremely successful,
empowering over 250 students on Friday, 3/27/09 and over 300 parents on
Wednesday 4/1/09 in committing efforts to erase the above statistics.
Congratulations to Juan Villa and the MECHA students for putting an event
together that will have long term effects on these students and their families.
We will be celebrating Sal Castro Day at Savanna High School every March 27th.
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