Grandchildren Cheer Graduate, 79

Over the years, Lucy Fleischer proudly watched her three children and most of her eight grandchildren receive diplomas at all sorts of graduation ceremonies.

But for Fleischer, who is 79 and lives in Granada Hills, the high school graduation she attended Thursday offered something new altogether. This time, it was her children and grandchildren who were watching. She was the one wearing the cap and gown.

“I wanted to show my children I could get good grades, too,” Fleischer said before her graduation from the Kennedy-San Fernando Community Adult School in Granada Hills. “This is something I’ve looked forward to all of my life.”

Fleischer was the oldest of the 46 adults who received high school diplomas.

She came to the United States with her parents from Russia when she was 5, Fleischer said, and she learned English in the schoolyards of New York.

The oldest of five children, she went straight from elementary school to business school so she could find work to support the family. Then she got married, and raising a family left her no time for schooling. In 1983, after her husband’s death, Fleischer moved from Queens to Granada Hills and, realizing how much time she had on her hands, decided to go back to school.

Fleischer took just three years to finish the courses for a high school diploma. Although she was honored as an exceptional student, math discouraged her at first and she almost dropped out.

“I was so discouraged, it was so hard,” she recalled. “I told my daughter, ‘I’m not going anymore, I’m giving up, I can’t take it.’ . . . But I did it, and got good marks, too.”

Fleischer went to a nearby school branch two nights a week at first, then four mornings a week. She worked at her own pace, completing courses when she was ready by passing tests. She also got credit for previous job experience, she said.

The cost of her education was almost fully covered by the Los Angeles Unified School District, her teachers said. Registration and lab fees amounted to about $12 out of her own pocket for the three years.

Not surprisingly, “Home Management,” a required course, gave the great-grandmother little trouble. She got an A, she said, and confessed, her blue eyes twinkling, “I could have given the course.”

Her daughter, Jean Mirkin, who flew in from New York for the ceremony, said she was very proud, adding: “Maybe I’ll come out again when she gets her doctorate.”