Reclaiming the Future : Former Runaway Graduates After Overcoming Addiction to Crack

Jane Soeder started using marijuana when she was 8 years old, sneaking puffs occasionally before heading off to third-grade class.

By age 12, Jane had graduated to cocaine. And when she reached 15, she became addicted to crack. It was then that she ran away from her comfortable middle-class home in Simi Valley to a Van Nuys crack house, where she lived with her boyfriend and a steady stream of strangers.

“I hung out with druggies and gang-affiliated people,” said Jane, now 17. “It just seemed like fun. I used to like getting into trouble, I don’t know why.”

Getting a high school diploma seemed a long way off.

But Thursday night, in the last wave of high school graduations in Ventura County, Jane graduated from Royal High School in Simi Valley, a year ahead of schedule, with a 3.5 grade-point average and plans for college and, eventually, law school.

Jane was one of 25 students formerly identified as potential dropouts who graduated from Royal High with the help of a special program for “at-risk” students. Of the 500 Royal graduates, the story of Jane’s turnaround and her efforts to graduate is particularly remarkable, Royal High officials said.

“You’re talking about an awfully, awfully bright young lady,” said Assistant Principal Robert LaBelle, who helped Jane make the transition from drug rehabilitation to a regular high school program. “It’s a real success story.”

Jane credits her family, teachers and counselors at the high school and at a private rehabilitation program with helping her get back on track. When she ran away, Jane had just completed ninth grade.

“I was staying in the deeper parts of Van Nuys,” Jane said. “I was living in a crack house. I had been doing drugs.”

Jane’s parents had noticed that she was keeping company with a rough crowd, but did not suspect drug use because her grades, which had always been high, did not drop significantly--only from A’s to Bs. Her rebellious behavior seemed like a normal phase that many teen-agers go through, said Alice Soeder, Jane’s mother.

However, when Jane didn’t return home one night and her parents noticed that some of her clothes were missing, they realized that she had run away. “It was a real shock to us,” Alice Soeder said. “We contacted her friends and filed a missing persons report with Simi police.”

On the recommendation of a counseling program, the Soeders hired investigators from a private ambulance service in Canoga Park, which specializes in tracking down teen-agers with drug problems and transporting them to hospital rehabilitation programs.

The agency used records of telephone calls Jane made before she left home to pinpoint the area where she had fled, then circulated her photograph. Within two days, they found Jane near Saticoy Street and Van Nuys Boulevard, an area her mother described as “heavily infested with drug dealers.”

“It was a place you really would not want your child to be, believe me,” Alice Soeder said. “Drug dealers, prostitutes, gangs. . . . This was the baby we had planned, so it really broke our hearts.”

Jane said she remembers little of the two-week period she lived in the crack house but recalls the day she was found. “When they spotted me, I was very high on crack,” she said.

With the help of her older sister, Linda, and other family members, the investigators eventually persuaded Jane to leave. Police raided the crack house the next day, Alice Soeder said.

Jane was immediately transported to a drug rehabilitation program at the Anacapa Adventist Hospital in Port Hueneme, where she remained locked away for nearly three months while undergoing therapy and counseling.

Scott Huhn, a counselor at Anacapa, said the average stay at the hospital is 30 to 45 days. But Jane said her stay was nearly twice that.

“I was in there so long because it took me a long time to see the light, for them to turn me around,” Jane said.

But Jane made good use of her time. Through courses offered at Anacapa in conjunction with the Oxnard Union High School District, she earned 35 high school credits, enabling her--when she was finally released--to enroll at Royal High a semester ahead of her classmates.

“We were required to go to school at the hospital,” Jane said. “Most of the people in there would goof around, but I thought about it and decided not to.”

At Royal High, Jane continued her fast-track course, taking extra classes through an evening program the school offers and working in the administration office after school. She also received guidance and counseling from Kerry Jackson, coordinator of the program for students at risk of dropping out.

“I think I probably would not have stayed in school without this program,” Jane said. “I’ve always had someone to turn to. There are no closed doors.”

Said Alice Soeder: “Without the high-risk program, she really would have been lost.”

Jackson called Jane “very intelligent, strong-willed and determined. She took those characteristics and turned them around, used them for something productive rather than something destructive.”

The Soeder family has been through therapy together, Alice Soeder said, and is working to help Jane continue her recovery. “I’m not saying things are perfect--they’re not,” Alice Soeder said. “We have a lot of problems, but we’re taking them one day at a time, one step at a time.”

Because of what she has overcome, graduation was a particularly poignant occasion for the circle of family and friends who have helped her, Jane said.

“This is very big,” Jane said. “I’m very excited. My whole family is excited, and my friends. I’m glad I have all their support. Without it, I don’t think I’d have made it.”

Along with earning her high school diploma, Jane said she has learned a few hard lessons that she hopes will help her as she heads to college.

“I’m glad I got a chance this early to go through something like this,” Jane said. “I have a different outlook on life. I’ve lived both the ways I can go. I know what it’s like on the downside, and I know what it’s like now.”