Bay
Cove Seniors Meet Challenge
By Katie Nelson, Globe Correspondent, 6/18/2004
BROOKLINE -- Every parent is proud on graduation day. But
for Anna Wians, watching her son get his diploma yesterday
at Bay Cove Academy meant more.
"I didn't think he would do it, but he did," Wians said
softly from her seat in the front of the room. "He could
have given up, but he didn't."
As a high school freshman, her son David was reading at a
fifth-grade level. Yesterday, at age 20, David Wians became
the first person in his family to get a high school
diploma.
He was one of six Bay Cove Academy graduates and among the
five who took part in the intimate graduation ceremony in
front of about 50 people. Getting to graduation day was a
personal victory for each of the graduates of the
alternative high school in Brookline.
Wians spoke up during her son's graduation as a part of the
school's "open toast" tradition. For 23 years, during each
Bay Cove graduation, family, friends, and former teachers
have taken turns to say how proud they are of the young
people and pay homage to the school that helped them.
"If it wasn't for Bay Cove, he wouldn't have made it this
far," Anna Wians said.
David Wians struggled in public schools. Before his four
years at Bay Cove Academy, he spent two years at Ashland
High School. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder made
concentrating nearly impossible, and private tutoring
didn't help.
Bay Cove is a tiny refuge for teens who had trouble
succeeding in other places, with about 35 students and 22
staff members. Social workers conduct weekly therapy
sessions, and teachers help students complete the required
course work for Bay Cove and their original high school.
Yesterday's graduates, all of whom had passed the required
state exams, received diplomas from Bay Cove and their
original school.
All six of the seniors overcame challenges: One of the
graduates had leukemia as a child. Another spent the last
four years at four different schools. Most had records of
bad behavior on their school records, for problems like
fighting and threatening teachers.
Yet yesterday, when the seniors put on their gowns and
fiddled with their caps before the ceremony began, their
biggest worry was which side of the cap their blue and
yellow tassel was supposed to rest.
"Does it even matter?" 20-year-old Kim LaForge asked one of
the school's staff.
"I don't think I can even get this to stay on my head," she
said, while having her mortarboard bobby-pinned into her
dark curls.
"Sure it does," said Todd Smith, the school's clinical
director. "It's your day."
LaForge is the only graduate who will go on to college.
She'll go to Curry College in Milton, where she plans to
study nursing. The others are going to go to beauty school,
work in restaurants, and work at an auto-body shop.
Kelly Louis-Jean, 17, was sharply dressed for the occasion
in a crisp button-down shirt and a flashy, maroon and gold
tie under his black graduation gown.
"These people helped me stick with school," he said.
When he was in sixth grade, Louis-Jean missed an entire
year of school because of chemotherapy. Although he kept up
by doing classwork in his hospital bed, it put him behind.
When he got involved in an altercation with a teacher at
Cambridge High school years later, he got kicked out.
"It's different here," he said. "People have time for me.
I'm going to miss my friends, my teachers, my therapist."
At Bay Cove, Louis-Jean was student council president for
the last six months. After he turns 18 next week, he will
start a job at a T.G.I. Friday's restaurant in Boston. He
plans to buy a car and eventually enter trade school to
become an auto mechanic.
When he and the others filed into the school's common room,
the people in the audience cheered. Some mothers started to
cry before the ceremony began.
Handing out diplomas took only minutes, but Principal Judy
Gelfand tried to make the moment last.
"This graduation is nothing short of an act of courage,"
she said.
This story ran on page B4 of the Boston Globe on 6/18/2004.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
