Plant City Observer

Hillsborough honors turn around students

Sometimes, an incredible student isn’t the one with the highest GPA. Sometimes, a student can really make an impact when they are quite the opposite of the valedictorian.

The annual Turn Around Student Awards, held April 4, in Tampa, showcased the amazing 180-degree flips students from throughout the district have completed.

Four students from Plant City-area high schools were honored this year. Each has come from a different background. Each has had overwhelming obstacles.

And each has triumphed his or her own demons.

Marquasha Pate, 18

Simmons Career Center

The steaming metal of a hot iron stared Marquasha Pate in the face. Her mother was coming at her with it, threatening to burn her. Pate kept her at bay, struggling to rip the cord out of the wall. She managed to avoid being singed.

After that, she had had enough abuse. She resolved to run away.

Pate is the second-born out of 11. When she was born, her mother was just 14 years old. When she got older, Pate and her older sister had to watch over the brood. Their mother was in and out of the house and on and off drugs.

“We had to take care of them like they were our kids,” Pate remembers.

Because of her unstable lifestyle, Pate had been moved to three different high schools before landing at Simmons Career Center. She acted up for attention and bullied others as her way to cope.

“I was really, really mad at the world,” Pate says. “I would hear students talking about their lives, and I would reflect back on my own and think how bad it was.”

Pate eventually boarded a bus to Miami. For three months, she lived in hiding, scared the police were going to come to take her back to her mother. But much to her relief, her grandmother finally secured custody. That’s when Pate moved from Strawberry Crest High School to Simmons. When she started the new school year, she decided to change her attitude and her grades.

“This last year, it counts for me,” Pate says. “I wanted to be president of everything.”

And she did become president of almost everything. She heads up the HOSA Future Health Professionals club and leads the Student Advisory Council, where she meets with faculty members to help better the school.

She also became part of the National Technical Honor Society, is one of only two school office assistants and will be graduating this year as a certified nursing assistant and a certified medical office assistant.

“To have so much positivity as a kid from her situation is amazing,” guidance counselor Jama Hoffman says. “She came back ready to conquer the world. She’s personable; everyone respects her.”

Alberto Gomez, 18

Durant High School

While everyone else was in class, Alberto Gomez was wiping beads of sweat off his forehead as he picked strawberries and other produce around Florida. He had missed so much school, but as the son of migrant workers, it wasn’t really his fault. What was his responsibility was the type of people he chose to hang around and the kind of person he chose to be.

“I really was a trouble-maker,” Gomez says. “I didn’t care for no one. I used and sold drugs.”

Gomez had been kicked out of Brandon Alternative School and was attending a military school in Tampa. But Durant decided to give him a chance. Gomez was told to forget his past and only look forward. Under the mentorship of Migrant Advocate Jorge Salmeron, Gomez agreed to shape up or ship out.

“I wanted to keep growing myself academically,” Gomez says. “I wanted to be something for myself and for my family.”

Salmeron shared his story as a migrant to motivate Gomez. Salmeron had worked for 10 years picking strawberries himself.

“I relate my experiences to them and tell them they can do it,” Salmeron says. “Because once they believe in themselves, they know they can.”

When he first came to Durant, Gomez had just three credits. Now, he is a junior and will complete enough credits to graduate this year. He did it by taking a loaded schedule of classes in two different credit-recovery programs — all while still helping his family in the fields.

Still, he had his doubts. He was shy a couple credits earlier this year, which would have delayed his graduation date. Salmeron worked with other teachers and administrators to switch him out of an elective he was failing and into something in which he could be more successful.

“The hardest part was to leave my past life behind,” Gomez says. “The work is not hard. Just keep with the work, don’t slack, listen in class. Concentrate on yourself and your family.”

JyQuis Thomas, 18

Plant City High School

It was just two days after JyQuis Thomas’ birthday in 2011, when he got the phone call that would change his life. Two people had been killed at the house at which his father, Shannan, was staying. His family rushed to the crime scene.

On the way, they got a second call.

His father had been beaten to death. So bad, that the only way they could identify him was by his tattoos.

And just like that, Thomas’ world had been turned upside down.

He had to look out for his nine other siblings. After Shannan’s death, they came to him more often as the second oldest.

“You hear it happening to other people and … you feel sorry for them,” Thomas says. “But when it’s you, it’s a big life change.”

Thomas had to pull himself together. He already had good grades. They dipped a little after his father’s death, but he was determined to carry on. He also continued to focused largely on football; he played as a defensive back ever since he came to Plant City High School three-and-one-half years ago.

With the help of staff at Plant City High and his mother, Katura Jackson, all his hard work has paid off. Thomas will be graduating this semester with a 3.9 GPA and a scholarship to play football at Temple University.

“He is very humble,” Assistant Principal Colleen Car says. “He doesn’t think he’s anything spectacular and that everyone is just like him. He is awesome.”

Thomas hopes to study physical therapy at Temple and either become a physical therapist or a paramedic or emergency first responder.

“This is my new chapter in my life,” Thomas says.

He can still think back to the day his father died but knows he has a bright future.

“It’s going to hurt at first,” Thomas says. “People tell us it’s going to be OK, but it’s not, because you’ll never have another mother or father. You just got to look ahead, stay focused and make them proud.”

Eduardo Cabrales, 19

Strawberry Crest High School

In one front-office room at Strawberry Crest High School, a student was being reprimanded. But, in the next, a student was being honored. Eduardo Cabrales had been called up as the Turn Around Student for the 2013-2014 school year.

“I love this kid,” Dropout Prevention Administrator Jodie Carleton-Peace says. “He never needs any discipline. He is everything a turn around student should be.”

Cabrales had been behind his ninth- and 10th-grade years. After his sophomore year he had just a 1.3 GPA.

“I hung out with the wrong people,” Cabrales says. “I didn’t care at the time.”

But, after his mother and older sister talked to him, he knew he had to change.

“My sister said, ‘If you don’t graduate, we will still be here for you,’” Cabrales says. “That motivated me.”

So, he started focusing on his classes. He went to Saturday school from 8 a.m. to noon every week. That was the hardest part, he says, because he had to coordinate with his mother on the use the family’s only car. She had to go to her job at a potato factory. But, she let him take the car to get to class.

He also took summer classes.

“While all his friends were having fun in the summer, he was at class,” Carleton-Peace says. “He wanted to have a normal senior year, instead of a stressful senior year.”

Now, the tattooed-but-shy senior has caught up on all his credits and is no longer in the credit-recovery program. He brought his GPA up to a 2.0 and will be graduating this year.

“He really did turn it around,” counselor Marlene Hill says. “The difference between his ninth and 10th years and 11th and 12th is huge. A lot of students are like him. But, he actually listened.”

After he graduates, Cabrales hopes to get a job to help his mother. He also wants to go to college to become a building inspector.

Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.

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