When seniors at Mountain View and Los Altos high schools tossed their graduation caps into the air on Tuesday evening, it was the last time they would be together as a class.
Before the caps hit the ground, proud, camera-toting family members invaded the tight circle of black gowns and magenta leis to find their graduates, who were experiencing a whirlwind of emotions.
“It feels so good — nervous, sad, everything,” said Mountain View High graduate Tanya Diaz. She and her close friend Israel Guardado, who congratulated each other after the ceremony, will attend Foothill College in the fall.
Some seniors, like long-haired Colin Morneau, saw the event in a practical light.
“It feels about the same, but it’s nice to be moving on to the next step,” said Morneau, who will attend San Jose State in the fall with hopes of transferring to New York or Boston.
But for the summer, Morneau said, “I need a job. College is expensive.”
During the ceremony, Principal Keith Moody told the Mountain View High class of 2006 to “use your goals to help guide your choices, and value what you do for others as much as the size of your paycheck.”
But graduating senior Danielle Henthorn’s speech urged her Mountain View classmates to stray from the conventional.
“We’ve been brainwashed into believing there’s only one road [to success],” she said. Henthorn said she likes to vary her responses to the “What will you do with your future?” question — like telling people she hopes to mine coal in Greece — to see how people react, and because “I like to hear about the big and wonderful things I don’t have the courage to do.”
Exit Exam barrier
This year, about 750 students graduated from the Mountain View and Los Altos high schools.But while 96 percent of seniors throughout the high school district left the football fields with a diploma on Tuesday, the rest still had not passed the California High School Exit Exam and did not receive their diplomas.
Students of the Class of 2006 are the first in California who can be refused a diploma for not passing the test. Mountain View-Los Altos gives out “Certificates of Completion” to students who have not passed the test by graduation to show that they have finished all other required coursework.
“Everyone is kind of hanging in there until the end and hoping they’ll get that real diploma,” said Emily Goodheart, English Language Development Coordinator at Los Altos High School.
“We’ve said, ‘You’ve come so far, you’ve done so much. Be proud of what you have done. You will be able to be in the ceremony,'” she continued.
Half of the 31 students at Los Altos, Mountain View and Alta Vista high schools who have yet to pass the exam are English language learners, according to Associate Superintendent Brigitte Sarraf. Nine students at Los Altos High, 12 at Mountain View and 10 at Alta Vista still must pass the test,
The 4 percent of seniors who retook the test in May will not receive their scores until next month.
“I would hope that, once the results are in, that it would be 2 percent [who have not passed],” Sarraf said.
Those who do not pass that round must take summer school classes or the Adult Education program to receive their diploma.
Goodheart said her English learning students have worked hard to pass the test and have largely succeeded.
“It’s particularly gratifying in my job to see my kids graduate, because they’ve had so many obstacles to overcome,” Goodheart said.
One Mountain View High graduation speaker described her own obstacles after arriving in the United States from Lima, Peru four years ago. As a freshman, senior Ana Quispe did not speak a word of English; on Tuesday she delivered her speech in both English and Spanish.
“I felt lonely. I felt uncomfortable. I was afraid to raise my hand in class because of my accent,” Quispe said.
While her parents held down multiple jobs to support her, Quispe went on to master English, to take Advanced Placement classes and to receive a full ride scholarship to Santa Clara University, she said, drawing enormous applause from her classmates and the audience.
“I knew it was my job to give back to [my parents] by succeeding.”
E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com
