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Last Chance High: Students Who for One Reason or Another Didn't Make It Elsewhere Graduate at SAVE

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 June 2006, 12:01 CDT

By Katie Pesznecker, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Jun. 6--SAVE High School is the strainer that keeps some Anchorage students from slipping down the drain to drop-out certainty.

It's a last-chance school, but staff and students say SAVE's sometimes reputation as a program full of failures is undeserved.

"A lot of people talk down this school, say it's for the bad kids," said senior Jazzelin "Jazzy" Torres. "But no school, I tell you, no school that I've ever been to, heard of or seen has shown me the attention that I got here."

SAVE stands for Specialized Academic Vocational Education and enrolls students in 10th grade and up who either are at risk of dropping out or already have. They take three classes a day but also spend time at either a job or King Career Center, the district's vocational school.

The students have every imaginable reason for leaving their original schools. Maybe they just slacked off. Maybe a parent's death or similar tragedy made school seem pointless. Maybe they got into drugs, or fell in with a bad crowd, or otherwise just veered off course.

That's why SAVE exists: to straighten them out. The latest statistics show that about 40 percent of teens who enroll in Anchorage high schools as freshmen won't graduate as seniors.

"I had a hard-knock life, I guess that's what you'd say," said Jazzy, who went to three different high schools before quitting classes for a while. "We kept moving place to place. I wound up here and after that, I was on the ball. SAVE was the best thing that could have happened to me."

Teachers practice tough love. Students who don't do their assigned work are expelled. And it's a smaller program than the large, comprehensive high schools, whose immenseness is often cited as a reason so many students ditch them.

Jazzy might well have been one of those teens who gave up and walked away diploma-less. When she arrived at SAVE, she had earned two of the 22.5 credits needed to graduate. There was no way she'd graduate on time and, in her mind, little chance she would at all, she said.

"And that's what gets a lot of people down," Jazzy said. "You know, 'Oh, I need to graduate the year I'm supposed to.' But you think about it, and it's like, man, at least I graduated!"

Jazzy and classmate Derek Hartman served as mistress and master of ceremonies at last week's SAVE commencement on the UAA campus. The graduating class -- about 80 students -- was small enough that the agenda included open-mike time for any grad who had anything to say.

And the students had plenty to say.

They thanked moms, dads and God. They heaped praise on the staff -- a group of about 20 beaming district employees, from the school nurse to classroom teachers to the janitor -- who sat together in the front rows, snapping pictures and videotaping the ceremony and cheering wildly.

"Graduation is something I've always looked forward to, and now it's finally here," said one cap-and-gowned girl with long brown hair and eyes fixed on the teachers. Brandon Steward acknowledged years of "trials and tribulations" that landed him at SAVE.

"While I have been at SAVE, I've learned a lot, from the teachers, from the students," Brandon said.

Bonnie Degenstein, a little tearful, was brief: "It's taken me about six years of high school to finally get that little piece of paper that means I'm done. I'm so grateful, you don't even know."

Fidel Juarez said he didn't expect much when he arrived at SAVE. But, one week in, he realized it was the best thing that could have happened to him.

And a winding road with plenty of setbacks delivered Derek, the co-emcee, to SAVE's halls.

He'd started his freshman year at East High. He convinced his parents to leave him here with a 20-year-old friend when they went to Florida for a few months to work on their retirement home.

That proved to be a disaster: Derek missed 35 days of school.

The next year, he tried Highland Tech, a charter school that lets students work at their own pace. Unfortunately, his chosen pace was to play on his computer instead of do schoolwork.

He withdrew halfway through his junior year with just 12 credits earned. He tried the Alaska Military Youth Academy. But a jet skiing accident led to a medical discharge.

SAVE was Derek's last stop.

To go there, he had to get a job or go to the career center. He did both, working construction and studying aviation technology. He kept up with schoolwork, knowing that otherwise they'd boot him.

"I learned it's all up to you," Derek said. "You have the ability. Highland Tech was a good school, but it didn't work for me. SAVE was more relaxed -- and don't make it sound like you're not doing anything, because they're on your rear. But the environment at the school is the best I've ever been in."

Derek focused. SAVE was free of distracting "high school drama" and the teachers were always there to help. At one point, graduating on time seemed impossible. But he did it and, during his turn at the mike at graduation, thanked everyone who helped him -- and also his parents for their love and patience.

"I hope I've made people proud," Derek said. "I know I'm proud of where I am today. High school is just mile-marker one on the road of life. Here's where the journey really begins."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Anchorage Daily News

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