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Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- Live hula dancing made the Back Bay and Monte Vista high

schools’ graduation ceremony as unique as the education students get

there.

Packed into a small, airless auditorium, students -- many of whom

truly doubted the day would come -- graduated from Newport-Mesa’s two

alternative education high schools Thursday morning.

“Any emotion you can imagine, we’re feeling,” said Jade Smith, 18, who

graduated from Monte Vista High School.

Smith said she woke up just five minutes before she was to be lined up

to graduate thanks to nerves and a sleepless night.

For Smith and more than 100 other students, the ceremony marked the

end of a journey that began elsewhere and often mirrored a long and bumpy

road.

“There was a time when I didn’t value the education I was receiving,”

said Alice Kibin -- one of two Back Bay students to earn the Best of

Class title -- who went to three different schools before ending up at

Back Bay. “I decided I needed to make one more attempt to graduate with

my class.”

And so Kibin enrolled at Back Bay, where she and cousin Amanda Azurin,

who had previous shared a disregard for school, shared the Best of Class

title.

“School wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be,” Azurin said.

“It was putting my mind to it that was difficult.”

Each student, like Azurin and Kibin, has a unique story that led them

to these schools. For some, it is an overwhelming career in modeling,

music or sports.

But for whatever reason students ended up at the schools where

students take charge of their education and set their own pace, parents

were thrilled with their children’s choices and accomplishments.

Dennis Brown has now had two children graduate from Back Bay,

beginning with his son five years ago and then Thursday with his

daughter, Ashi De LaCruz.

“When she was going through some different times, when she didn’t want

to go to [regular] high school, she came here,” he said. “All the

troubles we’d had in the past just vanished.”

So when the red-robed graduates flipped their tassels to the right and

accepted the flowers and balloons friends and family members clutched, it

was with a deep-felt sense of accomplishment.

“It’s finally over, and it’s about time,” said Tennille Rather, 19.

“I’ve learned more here than at any other school.”