When the Boston Public Schools opened the Margarita Muniz Academy in 2012, it was a first-of-its kind dual-language high school meant to address issues faced by the city’s growing Hispanic population. Hispanic students were both most likely to drop out of the city’s schools and least likely to enroll in college when compared with black, white, and Asian students. They still are, but as it enters its sixth full year, the school’s student outcomes are drawing praise from a variety of sources, though administrators note steep challenges remain.

The idea behind Jamaica Plain’s Muniz Academy, named for the longtime principal of Boston’s first dual-language elementary school (the Rafael Hernandez K-8 School), was that many Hispanic students would do better in schools that supported their cultural background and their first language. In Boston Public Schools, roughly 39 percent of Hispanic high school students are classified as “English language learners” because they don’t speak English fluently. Perhaps not surprisingly, these students drop out at higher rates than any other major subgroup. But not at the Muniz Academy. In 2016, 75 percent of its ELL students graduated, just a percentage point below its overall graduation rate, and 14 percentage points higher than the district’s average for this group (the ELLs also bested the overall graduation rate for BPS).

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