Students Say Conley Caraballo Is More Than A School, It's A Family

Like many young teens, Emani Cutrer buckled under peer pressure.

“I was trying to be cool,” Cutrer, now 18, said while reflecting on her adolescent mistakes. “I didn’t go to school and when I did, I didn’t do my work. When I finally decided to try, it was too late.”

Moving from Fremont to Hayward and transferring from Washington High School to during her freshman year caused her to rebel, she said. But by junior year, she learned that graduating on time, going to college and getting a good job would soon be out of reach.

“I realized it was my last chance to catch up,” Cutrer said. “Life is what you make it and if I don’t become successful now, I won’t be successful in the future.”

She found herself knocking on the door of , the New Haven Unified School District’s continuation school.

With the help of the school’s small but dedicated staff, Cutrer was able to put herself on the right track. Cutrer left behind the negative influences, started receiving straight-A’s and even landed a job at Southland Mall, she said.

And like 95 other students this year, Cutrer found herself graduating on Monday, June 11 — on time and with a roadmap for college and career success.

It’s an accomplishment that she and her peers may have never achieved had Conley Caraballo not given them a second chance through its personal, engaging and unique approach to education.

This year’s graduating class is also the largest the school has ever seen, according to administrators.

All of those who graduated have a plan for their post-high school life, staff said. Though a vast majority will remain local and attend community college, Cutrer will leave California next month for Altlanta Metropolitan College. She plans to transfer to the University of Georgia and become a veterinarian.

Cutrer’s life wouldn’t be what it is today if it wasn’t for the school and its staff, she said.

“If I want to give up, [the staff] always supports me. They always acknowledge you when you do something good. Students here have a good relationship with their teachers,” Cutrer said. “They want to see you successful, too.”

“It’s real school”

Because Conley Caraballo High School is a continuation school, it often gets a bad rap due to the misconceptions of what people think a continuation school is. And as a result, its students are often stigmatized as “the bad kids.”

“People assume the worst of a continuation school,” said Conley Caraballo Principal Mireya Casarez, who’s led the school for five years.

But when you step onto Conley Caraballo’s south Hayward campus on Blanche Street, just off of Mission Boulevard, you won’t find a scene from Lean On Me. Kids aren’t doing drugs and fighting, and “Welcome to the Jungle” doesn’t play in your head.

Instead, you’ll find a small campus with an average enrollment of about 220 students a year, according to Casarez.

While many of the students there may have fallen behind at Logan, those enrolled at Conley Caraballo are there because they want to learn, Casarez said. All students must formally apply to attend the school, Casarez said.

Unless someone is playing music during break or making music in instructor Marlan Simpson’s Digital Sound Design and Marketing class, the campus is rather quiet. And there are hardly any conflicts, students and staff said.

“The kids do truly get along. They take the second chance idea seriously,” Cesarez said. “They’ve managed to put those immature things aside.”

The campus amenities are also different from most schools. There’s a garden, a kitchen for the students, a meditation room and murals created by students under the tutelage of local artist . The school also has organized sports teams who play against other continuation schools throughout the region.

However, the school’s curriculum isn’t radically different from Logan’s, Casarez said.

“Even though we’re a continuation school, we try very hard to make sure the curriculum is rigorous,” Casarez said. “It’s real school. Our curriculum looks closer to a regular comprehensive high school than a continuation school.”

And it’s paying off, Casarez said. Each year, the graduation rate grows slightly. When the school opened in 2005, only 35 seniors graduated. Last year, there were 90 graduates. This year, there were 96. Only two didn’t graduate on time but will be making up those missed credits over the summer, Casarez said. On top of that, 12 of the 96 graduating seniors received scholarships worth $500 or more.

But why students succeed at Conley Caraballo isn’t so much the curriculum — “It’s the delivery,” Casarez said. “Doing it the same old way isn’t going to work,” she said.

Casarez is selective on issues and topics, making sure that the classes and instructions have real-life applicability. For example, English and literature classes follow the same lessons as in Logan’s classes, but with different reading materials. In the past, students have read books such as Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runne," Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" and Russell Roberts’ "The Price of Everything," the last of which was used to teach theories and concepts of economics.

“What’s important is the skills, not what’s being read,” Casarez said. “I’m more interested in making my students into critical thinkers. If they can ask questions, they can learn those things on their own.”

“It’s more than a school, it’s a family”

Corey Nguyen, 17, didn’t know what to expect when she came to Conley Caraballo. Like others, her parents were put off by the idea of a continuation school, but they had no other option, Corey said.

“At Logan, I was just not focused,” she said. “My mind was elsewhere. It was rare to see me in school. At the end of tenth grade, I realized this wasn’t me.”

Enrolling at Conley Caraballo was “life changing,” she said. “I fell in love with the place.”

The straight F’s she said she received her first two years of high school quickly turned into A’s and B’s. The one-on-one personal attention from teachers not only helped her academically but contributed to her personal growth and development. 

“The school really changed my perspective. [The teachers] wanted me to do more and find myself. Because of them, I value my education now and myself as an individual,” she said.

Though she invested most of her time in catching up, she found time to play on the school’s volleyball team and take up auto-body painting at the Mission Valley Regional Occupation Program in Fremont, which Conley Caraballo instructors connected her to.

Through the school, Corey also received a scholarship from the and will be attending Laney College in Oakland in the fall. She plans to transfer to San Diego State University later.

Corey said she wouldn’t have accomplished so much had she been at any other school.

“[Conley Caraballo] is more than a school, it’s a family,” she said.

Vingi Helu had a similar experience.

The 17-year-old, six-foot tall, 290-pound Tongan emigrated from New Zealand to Union City with his family in 2010. Due to differences between the American and New Zealand school systems, he was behind credits. He learned that he may not graduate on time despite his efforts and elected to go to Conley on friends’ insistence, he said.

“I just wanted to come to a smaller place where I could learn more,” Vingi said.

Like others, he’d heard negative rumors about the school. “But everything everyone said about it was lies,” he said.

“Conley to other people, they look at it as something else, as the ‘bad school.’ But it’s different,” Vingi said.

Vingi said it was hard to fit in at Logan at first due to being the new kid with the accent, but he managed to find a home in Logan’s jazz and choir groups. He didn’t think he’d easily fit in at Conley, but his classmates there welcomed him warmly, he said.

The ukulele-toting teen played a big role in the school’s mural this year, adding his native tribal art to it. The “Tree of Wisdom” features an elephant to symbolize knowledge with a “school girl warrior” in the center equipped with a backpack and an ammunition belt filled with pencils. In the bottom left corner, a boy is reading a book.

Vingi’s contribution — tribal prints running across, diagonally and vertically through the mural — represents the school’s diversity and promotes the idea of “knowing your roots,” he said.

Due to his family moving a lot, the time he spent at Conley Caraballo was the longest he’d stayed in one school, Vingi said. The lessons he’s learned and the confidence he’s gained at the school are what’s inspired him to return to New Zealand. The bulky-framed sports fan plans to return to New Zealand and play professional rugby.

“Beautiful, proud and smiling”

If you asked Stephanie Martinez as a freshman where she thought she’d be in four years, “graduating” would have been an unlikely response.

“I messed up a lot. I cut class four times a day,” the 17-year-old said, looking back at her freshman and sophomore years at Logan. “I didn’t want to be in school. There were too many people there and a lot of drama at school.”

Like many others, Stephanie needed more attention in order to succeed in a classroom environment, which she received at Conley.

“The teachers give everybody the same amount of time needed,” Stephanie said. “They make sure things are going well at home and in our lives, too. If something goes on outside of the classroom they care about it, too, because they know it can affect your school life.”

Doing a complete 180, Stephanie became one of the school’s best students. On graduation day, she found herself on stage giving a speech as the recipient of the school’s Warrior Character Award.

Stephanie recalled one of her first days of school when a teacher showed her a picture of a sinking ship. “You’re on that sinking boat,” the teacher told her. “Do something and do something great.”

She heeded those words.

Stephanie wants to be a social worker and is already registered to attend a local community college in the fall. She, Corey, Vingi and Cutrer are just some of the success stories that almost didn't happen that come out of Conley Caraballo every year.

As she is each year, Casarez was more than proud to introduce the graduating class Monday night to the crowd of hundreds that cluttered the school’s blacktop, field and sidewalk. Though there was one moment of mourning for the Conley Caraballo community.

Among those receiving special recognition was , a 20-year-old who was set to graduate this year but whose life was cut short by a tragic accident. His mother, Sonia Rodriguez, received the loudest cheer as she accepted Enrique’s diploma on his behalf.

A painting of a boombox with Cisneros’ name written on it made by his fellow students and a message board were on display, with many stopping to pay respect to their late classmate.

Despite the sadness, the students remained in a contagious state of elation as each of the students moved their tassels from one side to the other at the end of the graduation ceremony. Nearly 100 beaming faces who didn't think they'd see the day, now ready to take on the world.

“These students have faced many challenges and frustrations in their lives,” Casarez said. “But they’re here, beautiful, proud and smiling.”

-------

Like Union City Patch on Facebook | Follow Union City Patch on Twitter | Get Free Union City Patch Newsletters | Blog for Union City Patch