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P15
December 2013
And there is this: “I know what it’s like to have a
hard day,” DeeSember says with a shrug after a
tutoring session in which Cyrus seems distracted
and frustrated.
Tutor learned the hard way
DeeSember never entered a classroom until she
was 7. She was helping to raise her younger brother
for their mother, who was divorced from their
father and then had five more children, leaving
them mostly in DeeSember’s care. Several times,
her father,
Robert
, had asked her and her brother
to come live with him, but she felt guilty about
leaving her stepsiblings. DeeSember finally agreed
to go. It was the last time she saw her mother.
Her father’s friend,
Sarah Anaya
, got DeeSember
into school. “She was like my mother, and she
treated me like her daughter,” DeeSember said.
“She hugged me at night and told me everything was
going to be OK. We would spend hours studying,
learning our colors, the alphabet, doing addition
and subtraction, worksheets, reading aloud.”
DeeSember read “The Cat in the Hat,” “The
Rainbow Fish” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”
She passed a test to get into second grade and
soaked up learning, even after being bounced to
two new schools in third grade and yet another in
fifth grade. She had her own room and her own
bed for the first time, and life was good.
Seventh grade brought another new school and
an upheaval when her father and Sarah split up.
The children stayed with their father, but there
were many disappointments and struggles for
DeeSember. “I was losing too much at one time. I
didn’t care anymore, and I just wanted someone to
be there with me,” she said.
That someonewas Sarah, who became the children’s
legal guardian when DeeSember was a junior.
The teen again blossomed, taking college prep
courses, editing the yearbook and working on the
student newspaper as a senior. And her potential
was noticed by
Arlin Guadian
, a GCU alumna
who worked in high school outreach. Guadian,
now the Learning Lounge’s program coordinator,
persuaded DeeSember to visit campus before she
graduated from North High last May.
“I loved it there – we got to stay in the dorms and
they had food for us, and the student workers
were really cool,” she said. “I got to meet people at
GCU and experience what it’s like on a university
campus. I knew this was where I wanted to be.”
In August, DeeSember started classes at GCU, and
she landed her first job ever as one of 30 Learning
Lounge tutors, working four afternoons a week.
“I love it,” says the 19-year-old business major,
whose brown eyes are as shiny as her black curls.
“I love my friends here. We are not just friends, we
are family.”
She sees herself as a role model of success for high
school students who don’t see that in themselves.
“I’m not afraid to say I’m a proud college student
who did it, and to let them know that, no matter
what you’re going through in life, you can still be
successful,” DeeSember said.
Gently encouraging Cyrus, her most regular student,
she says, “You’ve got this. It’s OK. I’ll help you.”
Student tries to keep focus
Cyrus, 15, is the eldest of four children who live
with their parents in a home in west Phoenix.
Before that, his family moved from one cramped
apartment to the next. But Cyrus is among the
fortunate at Alhambra High – his primary language
is English, and he has had relative stability in life.
He’s bright and funny, saying he likes school and his
teachers. Although his early first-semester grades
indicate success in Reading Fundamentals, Cyrus
is struggling in Algebra I, Health Education I and
Ecology, and he is failing English I. “When I get lost in
what the teachers are saying, I zone it out,” he said.
He heard about the Learning Lounge and came
in a week after it opened. His first tutor was
Emily Benzing
, who remembers him as shy and
unwilling – or unable – to make eye contact, until
she started talking about weight training and
football. And then they did his math homework,
solving for algebraic equations, negative and
positive slopes, ratios, probability, order of
operations and the like.
The next day, Cyrus’ teacher at Alhambra asked if
anyone in the class knew how to do a problem.
“My teacher was shocked – it was the first time I
had raised my hand in class,” he said. “I went from a
student who didn’t do anything to volunteering to
get up to do a problem. I did a problem, and I did it
correct on the first try. It felt kind of good.”
He’s young enough that Alhambra and the Learning
Lounge have time to help him stay on track for
graduation and apply to college.
“This is the first time I’m actually working hard
to get my grades up. Before, I used to never try
to do homework, and I was failing all my classes,
and I always had lunch detention. But now I’m
struggling to work hard,” Cyrus said. “Hey, I don’t
want to retake this next year. I don’t want to be a
fifth-year senior.”
A tutoring session with Cyrus can be 40 minutes
of sporadic productivity. When he’s on task, he
works quickly, asks pointed questions and grasps
his mistakes. “My teacher said I could be in the
top of my class when I graduate,” he says. “I’ve
been told I’m a quick learner.”
At other times, teenage braggadocio wins out.
“Oh, you missed it!” he tells DeeSember, relaying the
gory details of his bike accident and displaying a
bruised hand and scuffed chin.
“There was a fight at the flagpole today between
two girls!” he announces between fractions. “I’m
sorry to hear that,” DeeSember replies calmly,
steering him back to matrices.
Cyrus can’t play football next fall unless his
grades are better, but that matters less than his
long-term game plan: Get good enough grades
to enroll in automotive classes at Metro Tech
High, graduate from high school, enlist in the
Marines, attend college on the GI Bill, open a
mechanics shop, be happy.
At Cyrus’ age, DeeSember didn’t have that detailed
vision. She’s glad he does.
“I’m already imagining how successful he will be. I
can already see how committed he is to going to
school,” she said.
It’s paying off for Cyrus, too, whose next report
card is a motivator.
“A friend came by to see if I wanted to play (a game
of touch) football today, but I told him no, I gotta
go study at the Lounge,” he said.
“And my mom told me I was (being) responsible.”
■
ALHAMBRA
HIGH SCHOOL
Address:
3839 W. Camelback Road, Phoenix
Year opened:
1961
Principal:
Claudio Coria
Enrollment:
2,884
Attendance rate:
94.2 percent
Four-year graduation rate:
79 percent
Annual dropout rate:
3.3 percent
School composition by percentage:
Hispanic, 77.6; African-American, 7.2;
Asian, 6.9; Anglo, 6.0; Native American, 1.6
Teacher education:
64 percent have
master’s degree or above
Teacher experience:
10-plus years,
61 percent; four to nine years, 31 percent
Source: Phoenix Union High School District