WASHINGTON

When Ricardo Esparza became principal of Granger High School in South Central Washington state nine years ago, he walked into an environment where gangs roamed the halls, fights were common and academic performance was less than impressive.

“We had a 30 percent graduation rate about five or six years ago and 20 percent passing in reading (on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning) and 8 percent in writing,” Esparza said. “It (the school) was definitely demoralized.”

In the past three years, academic and social improvements made at Granger have started to take root. In 2007, the school — which is about 86 percent Latino, with 92 percent of students enrolled in the federal free- and reduced-price lunch program — posted a 90 percent graduation rate, Esparza said.

Asked to grade his school today in terms of academic rigor and student support, Nick Guerra, a junior at Granger, gave it a “B+” noting that “We’ve come a long ways. We’ve probably been an “F” at one time, but we’ve shown a lot of progress over the years.”

Granger was one of several schools across the country with high-minority and high-poverty enrollments that have been labeled a success because of factors highlighted recently during a three-day conference on high school equity held in Washington, D.C.

About 40 Latino local and state elected and appointed officials from states such as Arizona, Maryland, New York and Michigan attended the conference, sponsored by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, also known as NALEO.

Conference attendees heard Esparza, Guerra and fellow Granger student Lee Sekaquaptewa talk about educational programs and approaches that work, as well as about what students need from their high schools.

The conference is part of a larger national campaign to promote educational equality in American high schools. It represents a historic collaboration among several minority-focused organizations, including the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza and the National Urban League, to educate legislators and citizens in addressing the poor instructional quality and low student achievement of minority and low-income students in the nation’s high schools.