When I was growing up in Corcoran, my family never talked about “if” you go to college.  It was always “when.”  My mother dropped out of high school in 10th grade and my father graduated after taking off a year.  To them, a college degree was worth whatever it took.  Being depression-era children, they missed the opportunity for college and were determined that I would not.

That “when” not “if” mentality is in short supply in our region. 

An article in The Fresno Bee caught my attention this week.  It talked about income levels and said that income levels in the San Joaquin Valley are among the lowest in the land.  Fresno County was ranked 160th from the bottom nationally out of 774 counties and Kings County was 40th from the bottom based on a recent Census Bureau survey. 

If you check the Census Bureau statistics, you’ll also find that educational attainment levels in the two counties are also low on the charts.  Only about three-quarters of the residents of the two counties who are 25 and older have a high school diploma.  Tulare County was dead last on the list of rankings by college degrees at number 233.  Fresno was at 219 and Kings County wasn’t even listed.

As I see it, a big part of our job at West Hills is to change thinking to “when” our children, and our neighbor’s children, go to college.  We’ve created tremendous opportunity on the west side by making access to education possible in even the most remote communities.  This semester we’re offering classes in Mendota and Tranquillity.  Last semester we offered a college class at Avenal High School.

Our summer programs have reached out to junior and senior high school students throughout our district.  Jody Ruble and Oscar Villarreal reported to me that every one of the students involved in Upward Bound Science and Math who graduated from high school last spring are headed to college.  When I worked at our booth at Hanford Farmers Market a couple of times this summer, junior high aged kids stopped by to tell me how much they enjoyed the 5C Summer Camp.  We are making a difference.

New vocational programs will also help.  They will train people for better paying jobs that are coming to our communities.  The people who get those jobs will have a chance at a better life.  Hopefully, along with everyone else in our region, they will come to understand “when” they and their children go to college we will break out of the bottom ranks of U.S. Census Bureau data.