This is our fourth year visiting the Success Academy to talk to graduating seniors, which has given us an opportunity to talk to over 40 students about their journey to a high school diploma. Any high school graduating class will contain a wide range of stories, each with its own twists and turns. Leon County School’s Success Academy isn’t a typical high school, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Success Academy gives students who have fallen behind a chance to catch up on credit hours. The school requires uniforms, bans cell phones, and lets students work at their own pace. Sometimes students come in behind and end up graduating months, or even a year, early. As these seniors attest, teachers are persistent in making sure that students do their work and understand the material. That’s a recurring theme in our interviews each year. Students have spoken of rough starts with teachers who pushed them, later to praise those same teachers for not giving up on them. Previously, vice principal Julie Lawson has shared stories of visiting and calling student’s houses when they were absent. For many students, this is their last chance to get a diploma and all of the socio-economic advantages that come with it, and teachers do their best to keep them from slipping through the cracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n