Today's graduation ceremonies

Berthoud High School: 9 a.m. at the school

Skyline High School: 9 a.m. at the school

Dawson School: 9:30 a.m. at the school

Erie, Frederick, Longmont, Lyons, Niwot and Silver Creek High schools: 10 a.m. at the schools

Mead High School: 11 a.m. at the school

The good news Ivan Macias got Monday decked him. He dropped into a chair, pulled off his black rimmed glasses, and slumped over his knees when he learned he made it — that he would graduate, at 20, from high school after escaping Denver gang culture, kicking hard drugs sampled first at 10, and making better choices after doing time with the Department of Youth Corrections for fighting.

Nick Thompson, an interventionist at Longmont's Olde Columbine High School, witnessed the moment.

"That's what Ivan looked like," he said. "Tears fell on his glasses as he held them."

Because the St. Vrain Valley School District's "traditional high school" graduation rate hovers around 89 percent, the community may take all the high school seniors tossing caps this week for granted.

Yet, for students at the alternative high school for at-risk youth — a place with bathroom signs that read, "Please do not flush tampons, napkins or diapers" — following directions never felt better.

"Do not iron your gown," Deniece Cook, OCHS's principal, said at an assembly Wednesday morning to wind down the school year. "The iron is too hot. All you need to do is hang it in the bathroom when you take a shower. The steam will take all the wrinkles out."

A tale of two students

Students such as Macias — who dropped out at 17 — know about wrinkles, about the ways plans can fold and bunch.

His academic career includes stints at 14 schools, four of them alternative schools, he said.

But within a year Macias will turn 21 and age out of public education.

So, when he moved to Longmont about 18 months ago — though he worked 12-hour days, six days a week painting — he enrolled at OCHS.

Macias struggled to earn his diploma, struggled to show up and make the grades necessary to graduate.

But support at school helped him smooth those wrinkles enough to walk with OCHS's graduating class Thursday night at the ceremony hosted at Altona Middle School in Longmont.

At the other end of the spectrum, OCHS class valedictorian, Amy Novosad, 17, started wearing her tasseled gold honor cord days earlier — a girl confident of graduating and flying high on success, not hard drugs as was often the case.

She dropped out of school at 14 and then returned to school after living briefly with family friends in Arizona.

Shortly after her 16th birthday, Novosad started working 40 to 45 hours a week at local restaurants while attending OCHS.

A drive by and brief history of all her Longmont addresses — even though she moved to Milliken and then Johnstown between ages 5 and 12 — partially explains why she experimented with drugs and got hooked.

"I wanted to forget," she said.

At one point she paid $900 a month to live in a three-bedroom apartment with eight other people caught up in the same stuff who didn't work or didn't work much, she said.

"I was the youngest," she continued. "The oldest was 30."

When Novosad woke up in Georgia, half naked and with no idea how she got there, it scared her straight.

She buckled down, studied, and stayed in school.

That both students managed against all odds including homelessness — as defined by what they call "couch hopping" — to graduate this week gave everyone in the OCHS community one more reason to celebrate, Snowden Campbell, an OCHS language arts teacher, said.

"A lot of kids don't realize what other kids are up against," she said. "I was that high school student who only worried about zits and boys."

Soft hearts at school

What made the difference for them is what makes the difference for so many young people trying to get traction and momentum as they head into adult life — some combination of drive and support.

For instance, in the months leading up to the death of Novosad's mother — an alcoholic often estranged from her daughter — Campbell and other OCHS staff called, texted and emailed to walk with her through the loss.

Her mom died from breast cancer April 25.

"And Snowden just loved me like another one of her own then," Novosad said.

When Macias' worries about an ex-girlfriend's pregnancy pushed him to smoke Marlboro Reds again and ditch school this spring, Campbell mailed a handwritten letter to his dad's home in Longmont — a place Macias calls home sometimes.

"She said she missed me at school," he said. "She sees me. ... And what do I see at Olde Columbine? I see happiness there. People are good. If they aren't, it gets solved out quick. They notice when your grades go down, or when you're not there."

Campbell turned to him with a wry smile.

"We have a hard time staying out of your business, don't we?" she said.

What fills the windshield

But in the business of education, that's what it takes with some students, OCHS staff said.

Novosad stretched to graduate at the top of her class and secure a Realities for Children Boulder County scholarship — a full ride to the University of Colorado at Boulder starting this fall, though she wants to continue living in Longmont in the small apartment she shares with her fiance, his father, and a mutual friend.

She wants to graduate again — next time from CU as a hospice nurse.

For his part, Macias now hopes to attend Northeastern Junior College in Sterling to begin earning a degree in sociology and/or criminology so he can work with youths where he once served time.

The black gothic script tattoo that covers about half of his right forearm tells half of his story so far.

He got it at 13 to tell the world the English word he identified with most at the time — the word "ruthless."

"I grew up with violence, and I was a fighter even then," Macias said.

The word he wants tattooed after commencement on the blank skin around it is "persistence."

"When they told me I would graduate this week, I was happy sad. I didn't know how to feel because I never had that feeling before," Macias said. "I know why I'm happy. ... I think I felt sad at that moment, too, because the world is unfair, and I was remembering that my two little brothers and my mother are not here. They are still there."

Pam Mellskog can be reached at p.mellskog@gmail.com or at 303-746-0942.

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