Kimberly Cervantes is one of five students in Compton suing the school district, alleging school administrators refused to provide help to address trauma physical and emotional trauma they’d suffered and that hurt their education.; Credit: Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/KPCC

Research shows that traumatic experiences lead some children to repeat a grade, miss school, have behavioral problems and be suspended — all of which can contribute to higher dropout rates.

This issue was at the heart of an ongoing lawsuit against Compton Unified School District that says the district did not do enough to counterbalance complex traumatic events among students.

To learn more about how children process stress and trauma, Take Two’s A. Martinez speaks with Susan Ko, clinical psychologist and co-managing Director of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress​.