LaQuanda Johnson has graduated from the PACE Center and will be a junior at Dixie Hollins High School next year.
By LORRI HELFAND
Published May 25, 2003
LaQuanda Johnson sits at the end of the front row of chairs at Ruth Eckerd Hall, wearing a burgundy cap and gown. Every few minutes, she turns her head toward the back row and grins broadly at Joyce Walker, her aunt and the woman who raised her since she was 3 months old. Walker beams back.
Then it's LaQuanda's turn. "Yeah, LaQuanda!" Walker screams out as the 17-year-old races to the podium.
At the podium is Lydia Brown, the nurse at the PACE Center for Girls in Pinellas Park, from which LaQuanda is graduating.
"You deserve much of the credit for the changes that have taken place," Brown tells LaQuanda. "We hope that you will continue."
It has been a long road for LaQuanda to get to where she is - and a long road remains.
Her flowing gown makes it hard to see, but LaQuanda is eight months pregnant.
Turning around
Walker brought her niece home about 17 years ago. She snatched the child from her sister's apartment after she found LaQuanda, lying unattended while her mother smoked crack cocaine.
That was not the life Walker wanted for LaQuanda.
Walker raised the child with the help of Sammie Walker, now her husband, whom LaQuanda called "Daddy."
LaQuanda attended Lealman Discovery School, a school for kids at risk of dropping out. She did okay.
But something happened when she got to Dixie Hollins High School. She felt lost in larger classes, she said.
Her freshman year at Dixie Hollins High School, she went to school but rarely went to class. Instead, she roamed the halls. Her grades dove.
At home, things were hard, too.
Five years ago, her "Daddy" had a stroke, the same ailment that claimed her mother's life. He was paralyzed on his right side. Walker quit her job as a certified nursing assistant to take care of him. They began living on 70-year-old Sammie Walker's pension and Social Security benefits.
LaQuanda began hanging out at a bar around the corner. Then she started running away.
More than a year ago, she disappeared for two weeks.
Walker was scared. She took a photo of LaQuanda to the police station. Soon there were missing child posters with LaQuanda's face on them hanging throughout their Wildwood Heights neighborhood in St. Petersburg.
From time to time folks said they saw her.
It was a relief to know that, at least, she was alive, Walker said.
Walker found LaQuanda one night at Bent Pine apartments, where she had been staying with a friend.
She ordered LaQuanda into the car and headed for the police station. LaQuanda, then 16, cracked jokes all the way there, Walker said.
The girl stayed in a Family Resources Runaway Shelter. Walker let her come home after she promised never to run away again.
Walker thought about a sign she saw at the church around the corner: "Jesus allows us to make U-turns."
"It's never too late in life," Walker said. "You can always turn from the things you're doing."
One of LaQuanda's teachers at Dixie Hollins told Walker about the PACE Center for Girls, a state-supported nonprofit school that provides counseling, medical care and drug treatment for girls ages 12 to 17.
Walker signed her up the next day.
Building relationships
PACE, established in 1985 in Jacksonville, has 19 centers statewide.
It addresses risk factors for delinquent behavior, including alcohol and drug abuse, sexual and emotional abuse, conflicts at home, academic failure and poverty.
PACE is tailored just for girls. They take academic classes, capped at 12 students, and participate in a program called Spirited Girls, which incorporates lessons on health and self-esteem, domestic violence prevention, and pregnancy prevention.
PACE, whose clients are about 50 percent white and 30 percent black, tracks girls through transition services for three years after they leave.
PACE data show that 23 percent of the girls located for those services were enrolled in public school, a vocational program, high school completion program or college. And 54 percent were employed.
Building relationships with the girls is the essence of PACE's success, said Sally Zeh, executive director of PACE of Pinellas.
The right track
LaQuanda started in PACE in June, 2002.
The first couple months she wasn't into it.
She had to ride two buses to get there.
Paula Mack wasn't her teacher then, but remembers her. "She was loud," Mack said. "She seemed like a handful."
LaQuanda said she doesn't know why she was having such a hard time then. She just knows that before she felt invisible to her teachers: "Like they didn't care," she said.
She doesn't know exactly what changed in her either.
Something just clicked, she said. She had no choice but to apply herself.
"I have to," she said. "If I don't, I'll get nowhere."
LaQuanda came to PACE three credits behind in school. Now, she's a half credit ahead.
She rarely misses a day.
LaQuanda said she grew to respect her teachers and she started making A's B's and C's.
She became one of Mack's favorites.
"It's unreal. She was always here," Mack said.
LaQuanda's stubbornness transformed to strength.
"She was definitely a leader," social studies teacher Mike Koniarski said.
Things at home are better, too, says Walker.
"She acts more mature than she was. Helps more around the house. And doesn't give me lip as much," Walker said.
LaQuanda is also a "pace setter," signifying her climb of several levels of academic and emotional growth in the time she's been in the program.
She'll return to Dixie Hollins High School as a junior next school year. She's proud and determined.
"I'm prepared," she said.
Walker is proud, too. She's also nervous.
LaQuanda will be back at a regular campus, abundant with the usual teen influences.
Then there's the baby.
Teen mothers are far more likely to drop out. Thirty percent of teen mothers complete high school, compared with 76 percent of their peers, according to a report from the National Association of State Boards of Education.
The father of LaQuanda's baby is her 19-year-old boyfriend. He wants to help out, but LaQuanda's not thrilled with that idea right now, Walker said. Being a teen mom will be a challenge.
But the pregnancy has helped steer LaQuanda in the right direction, said Constance Tarpley-Nolton, Healthy Family support worker.
"She's going to be a model student. I know she will. Now she's on the right track. She wants to do the best for her baby," she said.
A time to celebrate
To show their appreciation, LaQuanda's family gave a dinner for the PACE staff Thursday.
LaQuanda's aunt, Mae Wright, brought deviled eggs. Her grandmother, Alberta Nettles, contributed potato salad.
As Walker and several family members set up the food in the PACE Great Room LaQuanda scurried around the center wearing a bright red PACE T-shirt.
"Y'all don't miss me," LaQuanda said, smiling.
LaQuanda's grandmother blessed the food, her cousin sang a couple of songs and her sister recited a poem.
Then Walker and LaQuanda addressed the PACE staff.
"I don't know where she would be today if it wasn't for PACE. She was skipping school running away, making D's and F's and doing every mischievous thing a determined teenager could possibly do wrong.
"But thanks to PACE staff, she is not the old LaQuanda I used to know and don't want to know again," Walker said.
"She's the new LaQuanda that I want to know the rest of my life."
LaQuanda thanked a few of the staff by name and said: "Thanks to all the counselors, social workers and every one of you that I did not name. You know the role you played in my life and I know the role you played in my life. I could be here all day thanking you so once again I will say I thank you all I appreciate you all and most importantly, I love you all."
