Not many kids say that attending their high school graduation is going to feel like a funeral. But Laura Jimenez did. That’s how much she’s going to miss the love and caring of her teachers at Career High School, who function as a kind of adoptive family for her and were the key to her success.
Laura was one of the 986 kids graduating from New Haven’s high schools Tuesday night, in nine separate ceremonies around the city. All of them have success stories to tell, many about obstacles overcome — in many cases, with the crucial help of parents..
In a brief pre-graduation ceremony, Mayor DeStefano and Superintendent of Schools Reggie Mayo came to the Sound School to talk with Rachel and six others. They all had inspiring stories to tell. Laura , for instance, arrived from Colombia at age 9, speaking no English. She has overcome living in foster care since then, not only to master English but also to graduate 46 out of 140 in her class at Career. She’s going to Southern in the fall to major in biology, determined to become a dentist. The stories all made you proud of the New Haven Public Schools.
That, of course, was the point of the genial roundtable discussion. The mayor praised the smaller sized schools many of the students attended, lauded the involvement of parents who were in the room, and called attention to the fact that though a small percent of the city’s kids, maybe 5 percent, are often the source of the trouble that attracts headlines, 86.2 percent of this class is going on to college, 315 have already earned pre-college credits, and 140 are entering UConn.
It was an afternoon to celebrate good news for these kids, who were chosen by their principals and teachers not because they were academically the most accomplished (although many are) but because they are representative of a diverse and democratic system. There were also pats on the back from Mayo, who noted that in ten years the number of annual graduates has grown from in the 600s to nearly 1,000. Many students, he also noted, possess a remarkable sense of direction.
Yet could there be a through line, a common thread, a secret to these kids’ success in overcoming difficulties?
In the brief portraits of some of them which follow, what emerges is that a sine qua non is an additional involvement of caring, even loving teachers and parents, particularly at critical junctures.
Rachel Flores, graduating from the Sound School (shown here with her mom Dorinda on the left and her English teacher and adviser Donna Prete), said that during her senior year she encountered anger management problems. “I got into fights at school. It was not good. But then I started doing a little boxing to get it out of my system. I got involved in doing the yearbook. I organized the prom and the coronation,” she said, “and that helped a lot.”
“What else helped,” added Prete, “was Rachel’s mother. During the two weeks or so when her daughter was suspended, Dorinda made Rachel work at a soup kitchen. The entire day. She learned that other people have it a lot worse than she does. Her mom’s powerful guidance made a great difference, and I took her under my wing too. She was a rower, who broke her wrist, and then needed to find other involvements. She’s tremendous.”
Kimberly Lawrence, on the left (with Raheem Grayson) is one of the graduates in the first class from the Metropolitan Business Academy. She said she thinks her principal selected her to be honored by the mayor and superintendent because she demonstrated initiative by earning her hair dressing license by going to the Academy Dicapelli at night while fulfilling all her school obligations. She’s already been admitted to Central Connecticut.
“That’s great,” said the mayor. “Now tell me what are you going to be doing in ten years?”
“I’m going to have opened at least one hair salon.”
Always looking down the road for economic development, the mayor replied, “Are you considering a chain of them?”
Lawrence, still a cautious businesswoman, said she’d start with one. The mayor wisely asked her where she was going to go to her graduation party Tuesday night.
Raheem Grayson, representing High School in the Community, was cited for being a hard worker and visual artist. When he told the mayor he was going to college in North Carolina in the fall, the mayor asked why, and Raheem mentioned family. “Well, I hope you’ll be coming back to New Haven, too.” He pleased hizzoner by saying he would come back, for the food.
Jonathan White, representing Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, is someone the mayor already knew from his participation on the Mayor’s Youth Council. But White’s achievements also include having had a play of his performed in New York through a program of the Yale University Graduate Playwrights and the Beinecke Library’s O’Neill project. “I really want to become an actor,” he said. His mother Margaret, didn’t even wince and whisper in his hear, “No, doctor, please. Or lawyer.”
White said he has benefited throughout his career from being lucky to be part of a good family, but he also cited certain of his teachers as being influential and under-appreciated. “Some people think that New Haven school teachers don’t care, that they’re in it only for the money, but that’s not true. They do care, they help you grow. Ms. Kasinsky, my theater teacher at Coop, really did. And Mr. Laub really taught me a love for American history. I might minor in that, in addition to theater, at Howard University. I really like the period of the American Revolution.” He also enjoyed, above all other roles, his Laertes in Hamlet; however, he had the good sense not to like a reporter’s recitation of “This above all, to thine own self be …”
Cross Annex, some of whose students lately have been getting a bad reputation in their East Rock neighborhood, was represented by two graduates, Bianca Smith (to Laura Jimenez’s right) and Brandon Foster (to the left of the mayor). Bianca was to be the featured speaker at Cross’s graduation; she goes on to Briarwood College. Brandon Foster has been active in Youth Rights Media and said he always comes to the support of the underdog. That includes the way people think of kids at the Annex.
“I don’t like the way people talk about us, as if we’re some dumping ground there. But teachers care. Mr. Elder cared. I wasn’t so sure I was going to graduate,” he said, “but I was determined I would. I’m the only male kid in my family, and it was really important for me to walk in graduation. All that was holding me back was passing the English part of the CAPT test. My principal, Mr. Elder, arranged for me to prepare for it and to take it, and so now it’s great. I’m going to go to Gateway to raise up my GPA and then transfer, I hope, later, to Western Connecticut State. I love to act, and one of my teachers told me there’s a whole new theater just built there and lots of exciting things happening.”
Let’s conclude with another visit to Laura Jimenez surrounded by her “family,” (left to right), Career High School secretary Shirley Love, Haydee Thomas, the school nurse, and Career’s principal. Rose Coggins. “This young woman,” said Coggins, “is so remarkable. Whatever she has, her determination, her enthusiasm, her ability to learn and to know how to transition through so many difficulties, well, I wish I could bottle it and sprinkle it on the other kids.”
Amen.