Every year, more than 1 million teenagers, including high schoolers, are arrested in the United States. Students who go to jail are at risk of going down a hard-to-reverse path. Lisa María Rhodes, a social worker in New Orleans, wants to spring that trap. 

Through the nonprofit she founded, Rhodes and a handful of cohorts help young people who have become entangled with the law and all too often fall through the cracks in the American education system. They also train teachers to provide similar assistance. The idea is to support students in a way their parents often can’t and keep them from becoming another dropout statistic—or worse.

For Madeline Nielander, a senior at the University of San Francisco, this coming May was supposed to be a celebratory time.

Her family was going to see her graduate with a degree in communications. Now, those plans have vanished. 

For many students, the coronavirus pandemic is disrupting graduation ceremonies and stripping away employment opportunities just as they enter the job market. Many are already in a financially vulnerable situation.