My study explores the underlying factors that allow systemic structural issues to exist within continuation high schools which result in the low educational performance of low-income Latinx continuation students. My study focuses on educators’ experiences, as I conducted 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Southern California continuation high school teachers. I focused on the following areas of study: the teacher’s career, the teacher’s interactions with students, and the teacher’s opinions regarding their accessibility to funding and resources. My findings indicate that teachers, the outer community, and school-board administrators utilize cultural deficit thinking and stigmatization as tools of total erasure to exchange low-income Latinx students’ social identities with racist and classist stereotypes; in consequence, these mechanisms allow the district to impose invisibility on students’ academic and emotional needs in order to justify the formation and maintenance of institutional challenges for administrators’ fiscal benefit. Overall, these results reaffirm that our educational system reproduces social inequality; the total erasure of low-income Latinx continuation students’ academic and emotional needs permits the persistence of systemic structural issues informed by racist and classist stereotypes. My research calls for avenues of communication between administrators, teachers, and the outer community to address institutional barriers and, subsequently, establish equitable funding distributions to promote continuation high school students’ educational success with an understanding of the increased academic, emotional, and social needs of low-income Latinx students.

My project explores the role of teachers at Southern California continuation high schools as it relates to serving low-income students of color in the face of the institutional barriers within alternative education. My study focuses on the teachers’ career, interactions with students, and opinions on accessibility to resources and funding. I have examined their experiences through twenty in-depth, semi-structured interviews with teachers from three districts. My findings indicate that district members’ misconceptions of Latinx students as inherently deviant and academically unengaged drive institutional issues creating financial burden for which teachers are forced to compensate. My study highlights that continuation high schools implement unjust policies, limit teaching materials and resources, reduce funding, and restrict the hiring of ancillary staff. My research pushes for more avenues of communication between the district and teachers to fulfill students’ needs through adequate funding allocation. These results extend existing literature in revealing the untold narratives of California continuation high school teachers, the structural issues within alternative education, and the needs of Latinx continuation high school students.