(From left to right) Sione Maka Jr., a Tongan senior, Austin Ruiz, a Hispanic senior, and Chance Drake, an African American senior, are excited to graduate from Hinkley High School. Graduation rates for minority students at Aurora Public Schools totaled 50%, a four point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

AURORA | Many of the students who gathered at cafeteria tables at Grandview High School earlier this year had a deep bias against advanced-level classes.

Quincy Reese organized the lunchtime meetings as a push to get more minority students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses. The Grandview senior had already overcome his own struggles with academic achievement. He enrolled in AP English, math and psychology courses his senior year and he wanted to get a positive message out to his peers. 

“There is a stigma that comes with it,” Reese said. “These students felt overwhelmed, that it wasn’t right for them or they weren’t smart enough. There’s so much to get from it and so much to lose by not taking the course.”

(From left to right) Sione Maka Jr., a Tongan senior, Austin Ruiz, a Hispanic senior, and Chance Drake, an African American senior, are excited to graduate from Hinkley High School. Graduation rates for minority students at Aurora Public Schools totaled 50%, a four point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Hinkley seniors representing the Hispanic, African American and Tongan ethnicities, practice tossing their graduation caps in the air. Graduation rates for minority students at Aurora Public Schools totaled 50%, a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Hinkley seniors representing the Hispanic, African American and Tongan ethnicities, practice tossing their graduation caps in the air. Graduation rates for minority students at Aurora Public Schools totaled 50%, a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Hinkley seniors representing the Hispanic, African American and Tongan ethnicities, practice tossing their graduation caps in the air. Graduation rates for minority students at Aurora Public Schools totaled 50%, a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Hinkley seniors representing the Hispanic, African American and Tongan ethnicities, practice tossing their graduation caps in the air. Graduation rates for minority students at Aurora Public Schools totaled 50%, a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Austin Ruiz is a hispanic graduate from Hinkley High School. Graduation rates for minority students totaled 50%, which is a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Chance Drake is an African American graduate from Hinkley High School. Graduation rates for minority students totaled 50%, which is a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Sione Maka Jr. is a Tongan graduate from Hinkley High School. Graduation rates for minority students totaled 50%, which is a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Esmeralda Portillo is a Hispanic graduate from Hinkley High School. Graduation rates for minority students totaled 50%, which is a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Hinkley seniors representing the Hispanic, African American and Tongan ethnicities, practice tossing their graduation caps in the air. Graduation rates for minority students at Aurora Public Schools totaled 50%, a four-point increase from totals in 2008. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Quincy Reese figures out how to put on his mortarboard May 20 after a graduation rehearsal at Grandview High School. At Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Quincy Reese untangles his 2014 tassel on his mortarboard May 20 after a graduation rehearsal at Grandview High School. At Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Quincy Reese figures out how to put on his mortarboard May 20 after a graduation rehearsal at Grandview High School. At Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Quincy Reese (third from left) excitedly waits to pick up his cap and gown May 20 after a graduation rehearsal at Grandview High School. At Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Quincy Reese gets a hug from a friend and fellow graduate on May 20 after a graduation rehearsal at Grandview High School. At Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Senior Quincy Reese (center) waits for his turn to practice receiving his high school diploma on May 20 during a graduation rehearsal at Grandview High School. At Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Students practice grip and grins May 20 during their graduation rehearsal at Grandview High School. At Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Diana Stordeur, Grandview High School’s activities director, runs graduating seniors through rehearsals on May 20 for Thursday’s upcoming ceremony. At Cherry Creek and Aurora Public School districts, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Quincy Reese was expelled from Grandview High School his sophomore year after bringing a BB gun to school. Reese worked hard to graduate from Grandview by enrolling in expulsion school, writing a letter of apology and enrolling in advanced placement courses once accepted back to Grandview. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)
Keaira Porter visits her locker on May 14 at Hinkley High School. Although Porter lost her mother to cancer the winter of her junior year, she kept up with her demanding studies in the school’s IB program and will graduate this week with her classmates. She also earned an Arapahoe County Mayors Youth Award for her achievements. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

If graduation rates at both local school districts are any indication, the stigma attached to academic achievement is on the decline for black, Latino and other minority students. At the Cherry Creek School and Aurora Public Schools district, on-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise. It’s an increase that’s mirrored in steadily climbing graduation rates for the districts’ minority students.

“What we’re seeing recently is a general trend in increase that’s occurred across the board,” said John Youngquist, chief academic officer at APS. “The numbers look wonderful in many ways … This past year, APS made it past the 50 percent mark with graduation rates. We’re happy that there has been recent growth, and we understand that there’s a tremendous ways to go.”

According to the Colorado Department of Education, the APS on-time graduation rate was 52.6 percent for the 2012-13 school year, a 4.6 percent increase from the previous year. Graduation rates for minority students totaled 50 percent, a four-point increase from totals in 2008.

At Cherry Creek, the district average for on-time graduation was at 87 percent for 2012-13, and minority students boasted an across-the-board bump. Rates for black students totaled 85 percent, up 0.9 percent from the previous year, while rates for Hispanic students came in at 82 percent, a 2.6 percent increase from 2011-12. Data on totals for the 2013-14 year will be released in December.

Cherry Creek officials say Reese’s efforts to bring more minority students into advanced level classes neatly sums up a bigger push in the district. Robyn Duran, the district’s director of excellence and equity, meets with minority students from all six of the district’s high schools every month to address the same subject. Parent and district groups are also dedicated specifically to increasing representation in gifted and talented programs.

It all has an impact on graduation rates, Duran said.

“We want to make sure that we’re opening up access and opportunity,” Duran said. “We want to support counselors, parents and our kids to have the right language to encourage our students into these experiences.”

Aurora school districts aren’t exceptions. On-time graduation rates for all students are on the rise nationally. According to a study by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center released in 2013, the national statistic for on-time graduation rates neared 75 percent for the 2009-10 school year. That’s the most recent year final statistics are available on a national level.

Youngquist attributed the increase at APS to specific, targeted programs designed to get students thinking about graduation and college from an early stage. Those include the Futures Academy, an initiative designed by the district’s Division of Instruction and the local nonprofit Colorado Youth for a Change. Students enrolled in the program have dropped out of high school, and the Futures Academy allows the chance to make up credit and re-enroll in a traditional high school.

Those programs co-exist with a larger focus on preparing students for college. Students taking college credit is more common than ever at both districts, and tailored programs like the APS Pathways initiative introduces the idea of college around middle school.

“We want to make sure that from 6th grade, every student has a complete plan for the future,” Youngquist said.

It took more time for Reese to finalize that plan. Reese, who graduated this week, re-enrolled at Grandview after expulsion and completion of a credit-recovery program. Now 19, Reese said he had to get over his own stigmas attached to academic achievement.

“It was intimidating,” he said. “I wondered if I matched up to the rest of the kids in the classes. What I used to get through it is my work ethic.”

Grandview grad sees a higher call after high school

Quincy Reese’s first paycheck from a fast food restaurant effectively bought him an expulsion from Grandview High School.

Reese was a sophomore and he faced “emotional and mental drama,” as he calls it three years later. He had moved back to Colorado after living in Canada with his father fizzled. He butted heads with his mother, who was pregnant with Quincy’s little sister. Combined with the standard pressures of high school and the pressures of being a teenager, bad decisions were bound to happen and Quincy admittedly made a stupid mistake. 

He bought a BB gun with his first paycheck from his new job at McDonald’s. What’s worse, for some reason he decided to bring it to school.

Quincy Reese

“I brought it without anyone knowing,” recalled Reese, now 19. “It was more to show it off, not with an intent to use it. I don’t know why I did it. It was clearly irrational.”

That single poor decision changed the course of Quincy’s academic and spiritual life. In the zero-tolerance atmosphere of the post-Columbine era, bringing the BB gun to Grandview carried an automatic and serious punishment. Quincy’s expulsion was mandatory.

“At the hearing, my mother was in tears. When my grandparents found out, they were absolutely devastated,” Reese said. “I was at the lowest of the low. It was definitely the worst time of my high school career. It also turned out to be the most defining. It was then that I realized that I would have to step up, that I would have to reinvent myself and redefine myself.”

He came up with a plan to get back into Grandview. Working with counselors from the Cherry Creek School District, Reese enrolled in “expulsion school,” a program designed to give ousted students a second chance.

“I finished that, I wrote a letter of apology and I came back to Grandview in high spirits,” he said. “I began making up credits, because I had lost almost six credits my sophomore year.”

He did more than that. Quincy made school a priority, and pushed to challenge himself in new ways. After successfully completing a credit recovery program at the school, Reese enrolled in Advanced Placement psychology, English and math courses. He reached out to other Grandview students, hosting forums in the cafeteria to encourage more minority students to sign up for high-level classes.

Reese worked at a furious pace and it was all part of a deeper transformation. The academic success came along with a spiritual shift; Reese found direction and purpose in religion. A single stupid mistake as a disoriented teenager had far-reaching and powerful consequences.

“I had fit the black stereotype perfectly. You could have expected to see me on the street one day,” Reese said. “That’s what I thought. I started to get in to that mentality.”

The expulsion and the hard work to get back to Grandview helped Reese change course. As he prepared to graduate with the rest of Grandview’s class of 2014, Reese weighed a long list of options for the coming years. He’d already turned down money for college scholarships, intent instead on religious studies and eventually building a ministry.

Reese hasn’t ruled out college completely. He’ll head to the Community College of Aurora in the fall and study human services and criminal justice. In addition to his plans to start his own ministry, Reese talks about working as a social worker or a parole officer. He’s interested in helping those who’ve made stupid mistakes that have the potential to derail a life.

“I always like helping people,” he said. “It just feels good. I certainly hope I’ve done that with the students here.”

— Adam Goldstein

For Hinkley grad, final high school days are bittersweet

The diagnosis came before Keaira Porter’s second birthday. Her mother had terminal brain cancer, and she wouldn’t survive to see her little girl grow up. Celeste Porter had to resign herself to her illness, the doctors said. Soon, young Keaira would face life without a mom. With Keaira’s father effectively out of the picture, the loss would leave her with no parents.

Celeste wasn’t ready to accept that message.

“I remember her telling me, ‘I need to be there to take care of you. I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to die,’” Keaira, now 18, recalled. “She managed to live to see me be 17 years old.”

Keaira Porter

Celeste surprised everyone. She survived to see Keaira progress through Montview Elementary, North Middle School and Hinkley High School. She offered encouragement and guidance when Keaira enrolled in Hinkley’s International Baccalaureate program. The IB option wasn’t an easy choice. As a high school junior, Keaira’s English, math and science courses were as rigorous and stressful as college courses. .

She persisted, thanks in part to her mother’s encouragement. 

“I don’t want to say necessarily I saw her suffer, but I did,” said Keaira, who graduated from Hinkley this week. In addition to her successful completion of the IB program, Keaira graduated with academic honors and extra-curricular accomplishments as a cheerleader. “But my mom, she was just so strong and she just managed to be so happy and positive. It made it easier.”

It also made it all the more difficult when Celeste finally succumbed to her illness. Keaira was 17, a junior in high school suddenly forced to deal with a brand of grief many don’t face until adulthood. The loss threatened to derail all that Keaira had worked so hard to achieve. She suddenly had doubts about continuing in IB. Her grades suffered. Her everyday life living with her maternal grandparents posed its own challenges, largely because of the unforgiving, strict discipline of her grandfather. 

Suddenly, the future seemed distant and unimportant.

“I had to re-evaluate how I was going to focus as far as school,” Keaira said. “It took me a couple of months.”

Ultimately, she drew strength and direction from the tragedy. Keaira didn’t have to reach back to distant childhood memories for guidance from her mother. Celeste had defied the odds and outlived the most dire diagnoses, and that offered her daughter an important sense of direction.

“Knowing my mom, she wouldn’t have wanted me to be down in the dumps and getting bad grades,” Keaira said. “She’d want me to look forward to graduating, look forward to college. I had to keep that in mind.”

That guidance, along with support from peers and Hinkley’s staff of teachers and counselors, helped Keaira move past her grief. She kept up with cheerleading and track. She persisted in IB and took classes through the Community College of Aurora’s concurrent enrollment program. She’s been active in the school’s National Honor Society, and she’s a founding member of its environmental club.

That persistence helped land Keaira a spot in Colorado State University’s class of 2017. She’ll report to Fort Collins this year to start studying for a degree in business administration. She chose the school after taking part in a forum on black history and contemporary issues at the campus earlier this year.

Her goals are big. She wants to work in the fashion industry and eventually move to New York. She’s ready to explore new settings and tackle new challenges. Staying in Aurora isn’t a priority for Keaira, but that doesn’t mean she’s apt to forget her roots.

“After going through all I’ve faced, I feel like I’m ready for anything,” she said.

— Adama Goldstein