At-Risk Students Complete Course of Action : They Overcome Obstacles to Earn Their Diplomas From Moorpark Community High

Jose Zamora realized a few months ago that he had one more chance to finish high school and that he had better not blow it if he wanted to make something of himself.

“I was at work, holding a shovel and a pickax in my hands,” the 18-year-old said. “I just started thinking, ‘This is no kind of life. I have to finish school.’ ”

Zamora is one of 16 graduates from Moorpark Community High School’s class of 1994. The school is a last resort for students at risk of dropping out or for those who have been kicked out of regular high school.

Along with the normal day-to-day travails of teen-agers, many of these students have faced almost overwhelming obstacles to earning their high school diplomas, ranging from pregnancy to working full-time jobs to being kicked out of their homes.

Zamora, a cherub-faced young man with an imposing 6-foot, 2-inch, 280-pound frame, was sent to the school midway through his sophomore year at Moorpark High School. Zamora’s father had walked out on his wife and nine children, he said, forcing the family to go on welfare until Zamora and his brothers could find work.

He stopped going to school and started working as a day laborer, hefting bricks with his brother or doing other work at construction sites for $50 a day.

“I wasn’t interested in school then. I didn’t like it,” he said. “But Community High School was the first place that I read a book from cover to cover. It’s where I realized that I didn’t want to be hanging out on the corner with the other paisanos waiting for work all my life.”

Now, high school diploma in hand, Zamora plans on going to a culinary academy to become a chef.

Zamora was one of 80 students at Moorpark Community High this year. School administrators estimate that about 15% of the students end up quitting. But those who stay and tough out their problems overcome sometimes tremendous odds and earn a real high school education, avoiding the alternatives of getting a General Education Diploma--or dropping out altogether.

“A good number of students stumble and fall when they enter high school or junior high,” said Gabino Aguirre, Community High principal. “Whether they can get back up is the question. These kids are challenged; maybe they find themselves pregnant or they got someone pregnant or whatever, but, for the most part, when they come here they decide to work. They make the most of the opportunity.”

When 18-year-old Leidy Morales moved from Los Angeles to Moorpark with her mother, she had to make up a months-long absence from the classroom. She said her mother tried to force her to quit school so that she could help out at home. The friction between the two finally forced Morales to move in with her boyfriend.

“Completing high school has always been very important to me,” Morales said recently. “My mom and I haven’t talked for a while so I mailed her an invitation to the graduation.”

At the graduation ceremony last week, Morales came to the podium twice to accept scholarships she received for academic excellence. As she accepted her diploma, she looked into the crowd and was suddenly overcome by emotion: There, sitting among family members of other students, was her mother.

“That was the most beautiful day of my life,” Morales said. “It’s something I’ve been waiting for, and seeing her there touched my heart.”

Making it through high school and moving on in life is the goal of most students at Community High School, Aguirre said. He sits down one-on-one with each new student to review the requirements for earning a diploma.

Teachers closely monitor all assignments, math problems and homework. As each task is finished, the student is awarded credits toward graduation. The school allows for scheduling flexibility and independent study to accommodate students’ work schedules or the time they need to care for children.

The flexibility has helped students like Anita Ventura, 17, take care of their babies. Anita, who won’t have enough credits to graduate until the fall, said that when she became pregnant with her daughter Margerita two years ago, teachers and administrators at the regular high school wrote her off.

“It’s different here,” she said. “If you need to talk to somebody, Gabino’s there all the time, and teachers work one-on-one with you.”

Anita, who spoke briefly at the graduation, said she wanted to finish because she was anxious to go to college and become a nurse.

“One of the first things students ask when they come here is, ‘How long will it take to finish?’ We have a lot of self-motivated students,” Aguirre said.

He said students are often focused on everyday struggles and have given little thought to life after high school. He said he tries to make all students aware that, if they try, they can go on to college.

However, only six of this year’s 16 graduates plan on attending college in the fall.

“Clearly, some kids are saying ‘No, thank you,’ ” Aguirre said. “I just want them to understand that the opportunity is there if they want it.”

Many graduates will face unemployment or have to settle for jobs at local fast-food restaurants, he said.

“Of course, that concerns me. The reason a lot of these kids won’t get jobs is that the economy is depressed,” he said. “We do our best to help them tap into the resources out there that they can use to find jobs.”

Graduate Shane Pinney, 18, is looking for a summer job so that he can save enough money to go to Hawaii and work in his grandfather’s pizza parlor.

“I figure I’ll go there and decide what I’m going to do,” Pinney said. “I’d like to become a writer or a musician. I’m not sure about college, but anything is possible.”

In two weeks, Pinney’s fellow graduate, James Anthony Roberts, 19, will be at boot camp, beginning a four-year stint with the Marine Corps. Roberts, who was kicked out of regular high school for fighting was then kicked out of his home after disagreements with his parents.

Although his life was mired in problems when he enrolled, Roberts said Community High School forced him to think about his future.

“For a while there, I was working 50 or 60 hours a week at Carl’s Jr. to pay the rent,” he said. “That’s all I could think about. It took having someone from the school coming down to talk to my manager before I realized what I was doing.”

He said he cut back on hours and started focusing on school.

“None of us had storybook lives,” he said “But we all came to the point where we said we want (a high school diploma), and that’s all that matters.”