Delays Sweeten Triumph for 2,750 Graduates

For most high school students, graduation is a proud occasion, a chance to bask in the spotlight and flashbulbs of family and friends and mark the successful completion of 12 years of school.

But for many of the 2,750 students graduating this month from Los Angeles Unified School District adult schools, the occasion symbolizes a second, third or even fourth chance to triumph over hardship and failure.

“I missed my high school prom and my high school graduation,” said Miscelle Garlick, 31, who ran away from home and dropped out of Canoga Park High School when she was 16 years old. “I knew I couldn’t get my prom back, but I knew I could get the graduation.”

Dressed in high heels and a shiny blue cap and gown, with her mother, stepfather and two children in the audience, Garlick walked down the aisle at Canoga Park High School on Wednesday slowly, careful not to trip.

Like many of the 47 students who received their high school diplomas from the El Camino-Canoga Park Community Adult School this week, Garlick occasionally choked back tears as she stood before the packed auditorium, flipping her tassle across her mortarboard to the clicking of cameras and cheers. She said the ceremony marked a giant step forward after years of physical abuse, alcoholism and low self-esteem.

The obstacles they overcame may have been different, but for many of the high school graduates and more than 60 students who received eighth-grade certificates at the ceremony, the emotions were undeniably similar.

“It took me 47 years to walk down this aisle,” 64-year-old Lois See, the oldest member and president of the Class of 1994, told her classmates. “I made it and I’m proud.”

A mother of four and a waitress at a Woodland Hills barbecue restaurant for 25 years, See dropped out of Hamilton High School in Los Angeles during her senior year because she was pregnant with her first child. Nearly two years ago, after severe periods of depression, she decided to try again.

“I always felt bad that I didn’t get my high school diploma,” See said. “I didn’t think I could do it.”