The Faces of 1994 : From the Twentysomething Mayor Who Stayed Home to the Eightysomething Photographer Who Returned There, We Catch Up With some of These Pages’ Most Interesting Personalities : JENNIFER ESPINOZA : ‘She Doesn’t Want Anything to Do With the School’

This past summer, 17-year-old Jennifer Espinoza went head to head with the Catholic church. She lost.

Espinoza got married without the church’s nod last spring, and soon the nation knew about it (“They Say Love Conquers All--Will It Now?” Aug. 8, Life & Style). Alemany High School in Mission Hills cited archdiocese rules and booted the button-nosed teen because she was married. She enlisted attorney Gloria Allred, who took the battle to TV talk-show land. Allred argued that the school rule book said nothing of holy vows--and that the church should stay out of the Espinozas’ private life anyhow.

Under the spotlight, the church agreed to allow Espinoza back into school if she and 25-year-old hubby Caesar got a priest’s approval and wed in a Catholic church. Her other option, the church said, was to spend a year at public school and go back to Alemany at the end of the year for graduation.

But the two said their assigned priest was unavailable. By summer’s end, Espinoza enrolled at Birmingham High in Van Nuys. “By the time we actually got to meet the priest,” Caesar Espinoza said recently, “it was already too late to go to school for the fall semester.” School started Sept. 1.

Father Gregory Coiro, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, acknowledged the couple was a victim of vacation season.

Both sides ended the standoff frustrated. “She will take the diploma, but she will not graduate with the class,” Caesar Espinoza said. “She doesn’t want anything to do with the school.” Said Coiro: “It was very unfortunate that the whole thing was a public spectacle.”

There is some good news. Jennifer Espinoza is confidently college-bound. And Alemany High added a rule to its rule book that might have prevented this whole mess in the first place: No married students.