STUDENT ARTWORK 2007-08

Monochromatic depictions of Lake View Presbyterian Church

Highlights From Lake View Academy's Summer 2008 Newsletter

Excerpts from the speeches of the four graduates:

I didn’t graduate from high school because I moved out of the district the end of my senior year.  I was going to make up my final credit in the summer, but the school wouldn’t let me because I wasn’t living in that district any more.  They told me I would have to spend another year in high school (when I needed only one credit) so I didn’t return.

I got a job with Mexicana Airlines—I was young and having fun.  As I got a little older, I decided I needed to move on with my life.  I wanted really badly to get into beauty school, but for that I needed a diploma.  I could have gotten my GED, but I felt as if that would be throwing away all the high school credits I had earned.

When I started calling alternative schools, they all said I was too old, but I kept looking and found Lake View Academy. They agreed to allow me to complete my requirements, and I finished my classes in January.  Now I’m enrolled in beauty school.

Before I came to LVA, I attended a suburban public high school.  My first year there was okay.  I wasn’t failing any classes, but I was barely passing them.  That’s what I planned to do the whole way through high school.  It seemed like a good plan to me, but in time I learned it was a foolish way of thinking. In my crucial junior year the work started to get harder; I paid less attention when I needed to pay more attention.  First I started to ditch classes; then I stopped going to some classes completely.  I wasn’t thinking ahead:  I was living for the moment, having fun, and looking cute.

My mother thought it was best for me to go to LVA as my older brother had.  I did not want to come here or go to school at all.  The night before my first day at LVA, I cried to my mother like a little girl begging her not to send me here, but as you see that didn't work.

Now I am happy that my mother sent me to LVA.  I am much more interested in school; LVA is a better learning environment for me because the teachers are more aware of the students.  They know what subjects we’re good at and our strengths and  weaknesses.

I never thought this day would come; I’m so grateful to God that I am here.  I highly recommend LVA to people who are struggling in other schools.  Who knows, I might send my kids here in the future!

I started my high school career at a Catholic High School where I did just enough to stay off athletic probation for soccer.  After my freshman year, my parents could not afford private school tuition so I transferred to public school.  There I had no motivation to do well at all.  I was more interested in hanging out and trying to hook up with girls.  I was messing up my high school education:  I was getting bad grades and getting in trouble.  By February I left and came to Lake View Academy.

LVA is a safe environment and the staff here is a lot more like family rather than just teachers.  It has made me responsible and motivated me to become a better student.  It has introduced me into the working world.

My best moment at Lake View Academy is a personal achievement.  I think a few students can relate to me when I say this: the first time I got my report card, I opened it, and saw good grades…. I wasn’t ashamed that anyone would see my poor grades anymore; I was proud of myself.

When I graduated from middle school, I promised all of my teachers that four years later I would graduate from high school.  Then fall came and with it a different me.  I was scared my first day of high school:  I didn’t know what to expect or how to act.  Soon enough I had friends and started ditching.  I passed only because I always made sure I finished my make-up work.

The next year I was placed in honors classes, but I kept ditching.  I wasn’t able to keep up.  Three months before the year ended I gave up and started ditching on a daily basis.  My friends and I wanted to live and party like rock stars.  Whenever I didn’t want to ditch, my friends called me names saying I was lame or scared.  To prove them wrong I went along.

I started my junior year the same way.  Finally my counselor told my mom and me that if I ditched one more day they would kick me out of school.  I went to all my classes for three months – until one of my friends had a birthday party.  All of my friends went; I was by myself at school.  When lunchtime came I decided to go.  The next day my teacher told my mom and me it would be better if I went to a school where I didn’t have any friends to be a bad influence on me.  I was mad, but one of my friends told me about LVA, so I decided to come….

One experience here really touched me.  Last year we went to Grant Park to set up boots.  Every pair represented a soldier killed in the Iraqi war; regular shoes represented every civilian killed in the war.  I wanted to cry because some of those killed were the same age as me.  I thought about all the young people doing something for their country and giving their lives, while here in the U.S., lots of teenagers are wasting their lives and killing one another for nothing!  I asked myself: how can a person take the life and hopes of another person who wants to succeed in life?  I also thought about  the people who have everything they want and all the help they need and who still decide to go on the wrong path.  These boots represented not only the cruelty and the reality of war to me, but also all the hopes destroyed and the dreams that would never come true.

Today my mom’s dream has come true and here I am  graduating.  THANK YOU ALL!

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