LEA strives to help Latino youth in Illinois set and achieve educational goals by building support systems for them within schools. Our services and programs provide students with comprehensive support that encourages them to stay in school, graduate, and enables them to acquire the skills they would need to successfully gain admission to a college or university. LEA’s programs and services focus on first-year high school freshman that demonstrate being at risk of poor academic performance that can lead them to dropping out of school. Our programs target freshman students because research shows that if they stay on-track with their course work they are 3.5 times more likely to graduate and because the freshman year is point of highest risk for dropping-out for this demographic group. These program are run by on-school site coordinators who work collobratively as liaisons with the administrative, teaching, and counseling staff to connect parents as support systems for struggling students.