Extra study pays off for 314 August graduates

Jorge Regalado played on the drumline at his high school graduation, but without a cap and gown. He didn't walk.

"Seeing everybody and all their families, it just hit me," he said. "I was devastated."

Slacking off left him two years behind in credits at the beginning of his senior year. Midway through the year, his counselor recommended he leave Morris-Sunset High School and switch to adult education to earn a GED diploma.

"I didn't want to give up," he said. So he took night courses, making for 10-hour school days during the school year. "I'd get six hours of sleep if I was lucky."

But he was still short a course by June and signed up for something that about 2,000 other Clark County School District seniors did this summer. They made up their work in proficiency-exam boot camps and through credit-recovery tutoring to earn diplomas in August.

Not only did he succeed, he was the student speaker at the district's first summer graduation ceremony held Wednesday for 314 seniors in caps and gowns.

"Here I am with you today, my head held high," he said as his parents watched. Tears welled in his father's eyes. "Congratulations Class of Summer 2012."

A rainbow of gowns was worn by students from 34 schools. They filled the first 10 rows at Las Vegas Academy on Seventh Street. Maroon, purple, sky blue, navy blue, orange, red, green and black.

Their diplomas won't bolster the district's graduation rate much, but it was well worth the effort, Superintendent Dwight Jones said. In June, the district's graduation rate was 65 percent.

At the start of the 2011-12 school year, the district had 10,200 out of 20,596 seniors on track to graduate. The number of 2012 graduates has so far climbed to approximately 15,000.

To allow as many seniors as possible to catch up, efforts were mounted throughout the school year: one-on-one interventions, tutoring before and after school, assigning individual mentors, offering classes specifically for preparing for the proficiency exam. The summer school programs were then created for those still behind, costing $1 million and funded by federal grants.

"I'm pleased you didn't give up," Jones told the graduates.

In the coming school year, the district will face the same problem it had a year ago. Only half of its incoming seniors are on track to graduate, Jones acknowledged. It will take a few years to break that cycle, Jones said.

Although the district's dilemma remains, Wednesday was more than a small victory for the 314 graduates and their families, in the opinion of former district Deputy Superintendent Pedro Martinez. He can relate.

Martinez, now superintendent of the Washoe County School District, was born in "intense poverty" in central Mexico and lived in a one-room house with his family. They moved to Chicago's slums when Martinez was 5, and he grew up there with his nine surviving siblings.

"This may be the highest graduation rate for Clark County in a very long time but - for you - this is making history."

Graduation will help students chart new courses, as it did with Martinez, the first in his family to graduate from high school and college. All his siblings followed suit.

"Your actions are going to change their lives forever," he told the graduates.

For Regalado, he's not setting an example for younger siblings. He's following that of his older brother and sister, who both graduated high school.

His sister, 28-year-old Celina Regalado, made sure he didn't drop out, which he threatened to do several times throughout high school.

"We had a hard time with him," she said, mentioning the times he'd claim, "School is not for me."

Then she and her family found the first incentive.

"You want a car. You have to graduate," she told him.

That lit the fire, but Jorge Regalado ultimately found a better reason to graduate.

"For my mother," he said. "I'm the baby. I'm the last one."

His parents don't speak English, but understood the meaning of it all Wednesday.

"Them being here was just amazing," Regalado said.

Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.