High school counselor has a mission to keep kids graduating, as Sacramento County sees more dropouts

    SACRAMENTO COUNTY, California (KCRA) -- In a few months, seniors at Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento and other schools will walk across the graduation stage to receive their diplomas. It's the culmination of years spent writing essays, studying for exams, and dreaming of what life will be like after secondary school.

"A lot of our students are first-generation college students. A lot of them are first in their family to graduate," said Jessica Gunning, a school guidance counselor at Hiram Johnson. "It’s awesome to help get them there."

Gunning is striving to make sure every single student gets to the finish line.

She said that two years ago, 100% of her caseload, meaning her assigned students, all graduated. It was the first time in her 16-year career that she was able to have a "perfect" record.

Inside her office are dozens of photos, each showing a different student who once walked the halls of Hiram Johnson. The one common thread among them all — graduation gowns and a smiling Ms. Gunning.

"The freshmen come into my office for the first time, and they look at this wall, and they’re like, 'Woah.' Then they say, 'Am I going to be on that one day?'" Gunning said. "I said, 'If you graduate, yep, you can get up there.'"

Gunning said these former students still call her to this day, even bringing their own children back to campus to meet their favorite high school guidance counselor.

It's adding more memories and faces to this wall that motivates her to come to the south Sacramento school every day.

But the reality is, some of these young minds walking on campus today won't have the chance to wear a cap and gown, or hear their name called in front of their families.

According to the California Department of Education's Dataquest, Hiram Johnson had a 78% graduation rate, compared to the statewide average of 86%.

The number isn't far off, but what it says is that nearly 1 in 5 students at the school didn't graduate last school year. Of those students, 31 are doing a fifth year, and 50 students are now considered high school dropouts, according to CDE.

After looking at Sacramento County as a whole, KCRA 3 found a 32% increase in yearly dropouts from the 2019-2020 school year to the 2023-2024 school year. Those numbers include all districts and all public schools in the county for non-alternative, alternative, and charter schools, but exclude adult-only schools.

Looking closer at the graduating classes of 2019-2020, just 7.8% of Sacramento County students dropped out, which was the first group of students to graduate after the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020.

The data shows that the percentage was actually lower than in years prior to the pandemic, with 8.7% of the county's students classified as dropouts in the 2018-2019 school year and even higher with 9.9% in 2017-2018.

One could argue the rise in dropouts since 2020 is a course correction after students returned to learning in person, but right now, there's no clear understanding of why the numbers have been trending upward in the past four years.

The people who see these kids on a daily basis have their own theories that range from struggles with attendance to mental health concerns.

"I’m seeing attendance as a big issue, so trying to get students here that struggle to get here because of like transportation issues or they’re babysitting, or have jobs or family obligations," said Gunning.

The guidance counselor believes you have to consider what these young people face outside of the school, but also how they feel being back in school in person after being on lockdown during the pandemic.

For last year's graduating class, they were the first freshman class of high school students to ever begin high school from home, behind computer screens.

"We have seen a really big increase in students' anxiety and not wanting to come to school. They got so used to being at home behind their cameras, and now when we have them in school, they just don’t know how to interact with their peers, a lot of them are just getting really anxious because we’re having them in classrooms again," said Gunning.

Which is why she's made it a priority to meet personally with every single student under her case load this year and create a plan of action for those who are struggling.

"We find out who our priority students are, who’s behind on credits, who’s failing the most classes ... so that regardless of what’s going on outside (school), I have their best interest in mind, and I want to make sure that they’re going to graduate," she said.

"I want to make sure they’re coming to class; I want to make sure they’re passing their classes," Gunning added.

For Gunning, there's no one way to get kids on track for graduation, but she believes building personal connections is the first step. For one student this year who had little hope of graduating, Gunning, along with the student's teachers and staff, helped get them back on track.

"In one semester, you typically earn 30 credits, but she earned 75 (this semester), and so every time she did something, I’d send her a note. I’d see her in the hall, and I’d give her a high-five," Gunning said.

She's one of seven guidance counselors at Hiram Johnson, which she said makes their counselor-to-student ratio 1 to 250.

That's the recommended ratio by the American School Counselor Association.

A report from ASCA showed in the 2023-2024 school year California had an average counselor to student ratio of 1 to 443 compared to the national average of 1 to 376.

There's no way to track a direct correlation between the number of guidance counselors in schools to dropout rates, but the numbers do show every time a student drops out of school it has a ripple effect on our society.

The National Dropout Prevention Center reports that 75% of America's state prison inmates are high school dropouts. A report from 1985 predicted that every year's class of dropouts will cost the country $200 billion in lost earnings and tax revenue over their lifetime.

"Data shows it’s not very good; statistics show that they’re not going to have a good job, they’re more likely to be incarcerated, so it’s just really sad when you can’t make that connection and make that change," said Gunning.

For guidance counselors like Gunning it's not about the numbers, it's about finding real solutions for these students full of potential.

"She kept this huge poster and tallied every time she came into my office."

"She invited me to her Air Force graduation."

"She just turned 30, and to this day, we still keep in touch as often as we can," said the school counselor.

It's these memories and relationships she's built that give her hope. It's the reason she won't give up on any of her students.