Graduating Ahead of the Class

Like other 16-year-olds, Joycelyn Nguyen of Simi Valley is jazzed about getting her driver’s license. She likes to hang out with her girlfriends and admits that she sometimes procrastinates and often doesn’t make her bed in the morning.

Joycelyn said she’s looking forward to starting her senior year of high school in the fall, but first she has another milestone to savor -- graduation Thursday from Moorpark College.

Joycelyn took her first community college class when she was 13. Since last August, she has attended the High School at Moorpark College, where teens from throughout the region take their math, science and foreign language classes, as well as electives. Moorpark is the largest of Ventura County’s three community colleges.

The alternative two-year high school for juniors and seniors has been around for six years, and in that time, at least half a dozen students have received their high school and junior college diplomas in the same month. But Joycelyn is the school’s first student to complete community college before finishing high school.

She’s humble about the achievement, which few of her classmates knew about until word got out last month.

“The other kids didn’t know. They had no idea,” high school counselor Pat Birckhead said. “She’s a very sweet girl and just blends in with everybody else.”

Along with a full load of classes, which on most days keeps her in the library for at least two hours, Joycelyn carves out time to serve as junior class vice president. She also helps her parents in the family’s Los Angeles Avenue nail salon, answering phones and cleaning up.

It’s no big deal, she says.

“I’m always busy and I’m always running around. It makes life more interesting,” she said. “I choose to busy myself. I actually am happy taking so many classes. I can’t help it.”

Joycelyn’s parents, Lonnie and Joakim, emigrated from Vietnam in the early 1980s. They sacrificed a lot, they said, to enroll their daughter in private school, starting in the first grade. They later drove her to a Catholic high school in Thousand Oaks. And when she wanted to take evening college classes, they often slept in their car as they waited for her.

Koreen Simmons, an English teacher at the high school, said Joycelyn is not a prodigy. She’s an intellectually curious teenager who works hard and stays focused.

“She puts a tremendous amount of effort into what she does,” Simmons said. “She’s meticulous about follow-through and she puts a lot into everything.”

History teacher Bruce Potts said Joycelyn entered the High School at Moorpark College somewhat shy and a bit distant from her peers, but blossomed during the year.

“I’ve seen Joyce make closer connections to people,” Potts said. “Before she came here, school and her family were everything. But she has made some bonds that will help her grow in life.”

Many of the high school’s classes are taught by Moorpark College instructors, so students receive both high school and college credit. The average graduate of the High School at Moorpark College already has 30 to 36 college credits -- the equivalent of an entire freshman year, said Principal Dan Arterburn, a faculty member of Moorpark College. The high school’s teachers and support staff are employed by Moorpark Unified School District.

The school, which has graduated more than 250 students so far, is designed to appeal to teens who don’t feel academically challenged, are bored or feel out of place in a traditional high school setting. Courses at the High School at Moorpark College place more emphasis on writing essays, teamwork and class discussion. There are fewer tests and limited class lectures. With a student body of about 100, and one teacher for 25 students, it’s like a large family, Arterburn said.

“Teachers here are really a guide on the side. Students are doing a lot of the sharing. It’s called ‘teaching with your mouth shut,’ ” he said. “The teachers are the facilitators of learning, and that’s a wholly different approach.”

To be considered for the high school, prospective students must submit recent standardized test results, letters of recommendation from their current high schools, transcripts and attendance reports. They have to write application essays and participate with other applicants in a panel discussion focused on reading they’ve been assigned in advance. The school’s instructors and administrators also interview applicants and their parents.

About 85% of applicants are accepted. Though about one in 10 chooses to return to a more traditional high school in the first year because “they feel it’s not the right fit for them” the dropout rate is minimal, Arterburn said.

More than 95% of High School at Moorpark College graduates go on to take additional college courses, the principal said.

With only 12 credits left to finish high school, Joycelyn could have taken classes online and at summer school in order to transfer to a four-year university this fall. But she decided to catch her breath a bit and enjoy the final year of high school with current classmates.

Her plan is to transfer to UCLA in the fall of 2007. There, she hopes to major in biochemistry as a path to becoming a radiologist.

All in good time, she said.

“Personally, I think that I’m not ready to move on yet, because I’m only 16 and I skipped 10th grade,” she said. “I’ve had two years of high school. Sometimes I still want to be cuddled and cozy up with my family and friends. It’s the little kid inside of me.”

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High School at Moorpark College, 7075 Campus Road, Moorpark, is holding its next Parent Information Night at 7 tonight. For information, call (805) 378-1444 or visit the school website: www.moorparkcollege.edu/hs/.