Adult School Graduates Take Path Less Traveled to High School Diplomas

This week, 1,623 students in the Murrieta Valley Unified School District will don caps, gowns and tassels as they graduate high school.

Many completed high school within four years and are on the road to college, but for the 39 who received diplomas Monday night from the Murrieta Valley Adult School and the 10 who received certificates of completion from the district's Adult Transition Program, it was a day they questioned they would ever see.

Forty-year-old Isabel Perez went to high school in Mexico, and moved to the U.S. 15 years ago with the idea that she could continue her education where she left off.

"Right then and there I decided I needed to get my high school diploma," Perez told a crowd of parents, friends and administrators who were gathered in the Murrieta Mesa Performing Arts Center for the ceremony. She was one of three featured speakers representing her class.

She enrolled in Pasadena City College, but as fate would have it, she met her husband a short time after. Three children later, the couple is still together. But for Isabel, something was missing. So when her youngest started school, she enrolled in Murrieta Valley Adult School.

Her sons, ages 10, 8 and 7, along with her husband and mother, were in the audience cheering her on.

"It was not easy but we overcame the hurdles," said Fabian Perez, her husband.

He was not the only one in the audience showing pride for the graduates' accomplishments.

Erin Arnott of Murrieta adopted sisters Zoe and Fiona Nachbar from Kazakhstan when they were 9 and 10 years old.

"I'm so happy tonight I can't see straight," Arnott said.

"They couldn't read or write in Russian when I got them," she said. Arnott and her husband were in the country adopting a younger boy, when she saw the two girls in the orphanage. So they brought them home, too.

"They were living on the streets. The police kept picking them up. It was God's plan for us, how could we not?" she said.

Fiona, 19, told the crowd that she struggled in high school because she was still learning English.

"When I saw the gates of Murrieta Valley Adult School, I realized 'this is where I belong.' From then on I knew I had a support team. I wasn't there for chit chat, I was there to get an education and get out," Fiona said.

Murrieta Valley Adult School requires self-directed, independent study. Principal Tom Petrich said students must complete all core classes in order to receive a diploma.

"You have kept that promise to yourself to get your diploma...some of you tried to study as the baby was crying," Petrich said.

There were also those who went through the district's Adult Transition Program, many of whom have special needs or are disabled. The program places students in jobs within the community, where they learn life and job skills.

John and Blanca Tobin of Murrieta said their daughter, Nancy, 22, went through four years of special education at Vista Murrieta High School and then four years of the transition program. Nancy suffers from tuberous sclerosis and autism.

"We wanted her to keep going for her self-esteem," said John Tobin about his daughter. "She calls it her college and she is so happy to be finished with it."

The graduates were congratulated by Superintendent Stan Scheer and members of the school board.

Board President Paul Diffley used Alice from Alice in Wonderland as an example.

"Sometimes she was this big," Diffley said motioning with his hands. "And sometimes she was this big," he said, opening them wider.

"Tonight as far as the Board of Education, this staff and your parents are concerned, you are this big," he said, keeping his hands wide.

"You have taken the right road."