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What it’s like to graduate from L.A. Unified as an untraditional student

A graduation cap from the Los Angeles Unified School District commencement ceremony for students at alternative and continuation high schools.
(Harrison Hill / Los Angeles Times)
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Destin Thompson has attended five high schools in two states.

Many Los Angeles Unified School District high school students graduate Thursday, but Thompson was one of hundreds of students from more than two dozen alternative high schools who moved their tassels across their mortarboards Wednesday. The ceremony at East Los Angeles College included most of the district’s educational options program schools, which serve students who need to recover credits, learn on flexible schedules or haven’t graduated on time.

Most of Wednesday’s graduates took untraditional paths to the finish line. Thompson and his mother moved to where she could find work, but keeping up with the different demands of all those schools proved difficult. Thompson started high school in Compton; then he and his mom lived in Nevada until she lost her job.

Afterward, in 2015, they moved to L.A. and found Patton High School, an alternative school that allowed Thompson to make up the credits that he was missing and take the classes he needed to graduate on time.

Thompson’s story was familiar to many of the graduates — Jaileene Flores, who rocked a mustache-adorned bow tie and a Ravenclaw-inspired cap, went to three high schools in Texas and L.A. before graduating from Youth Opportunities Unlimited Alternative High School in South L.A.

 

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It’s hard to track credits, make sure they transfer and keep up with different classes when you’re moving that much, students said. The alternative and continuation schools are more likely to accept credits from other states, and allow students to take more classes in one semester.

It’s a struggle Walter Webb and Chandra McPherson know – they sat in the crowd Wednesday watching their son Christopher Webb graduate from Henry David Thoreau Continuation High School in Woodland Hills. 

Christopher, 17, has attended three high schools in three different states — Illinois, North Carolina and California, including Thoreau. He was home-schooled for two years while his parents were in custody negotiations. Halfway through this school year, while he lived with his father in North Carolina, Christopher realized he would not be able to graduate on time, McPherson said.

At some point you’ve just got to say, ‘I’ve just got to get it done.’

— Chandra McPherson, mother of graduate Christopher Webb, 17

So he moved to L.A., where his mom lives, and enrolled in Thoreau. He finished 12 classes in eight weeks so he could graduate on Wednesday. 

“He just whipped through them,” McPherson said, and worked from 8 a.m. until midnight many days. “He was not playing.”

McPherson knows her son did not spend as much time with the materials as students at traditional schools do, and he might have a lower-quality high school education because of it. But she’s OK with the decision to graduate on time, because he’s going on to a two-year college with plans to transfer to a four-year college.

“At some point you’ve just got to say, ‘I’ve just got to get it done,’” McPherson said. 

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Like many other high school (and college) graduates, the continuation school seniors got creative with their caps.

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During the ceremony, L.A. Unified school board member Ref Rodriguez reminded the students of the message some projected from their caps.

“When you're the first,” Rodriguez told the graduates, “You open the door and it never closes behind you."

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