LOS ANGELES (AP) — Amid the verdant lawn and leafy trees of the tidy Jefferson Senior High School campus, a police officer patrols the grounds and a sign warns that guns are illegal.

Students in this inner-city school say gang members frequently disrupt class, and teachers spend much of their time dealing with troublemakers.

The biggest problem here, however, may be what you don’t see — all the dropouts.

With a 58 percent dropout rate, Jefferson has the worst dropout record in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest.

“It’s horrendous,” said Debra Duardo, director of the dropout prevention and recovery program at the district, which averages 33.6 percent dropouts.