Francisco is Having the Best Week Ever

Every day for four years, Norma DeLeon Zarate would remind her son Francisco this day was coming.

"For as long as I can remember, she was saying, 'You’re almost there, you can do it,'" Francisco, 18, recalled the week before graduation, sitting at a desk in what was once his ninth grade history class. "Throughout the years, she’s been reminding me that I’m going to graduate soon."

Francisco, one of 68 seniors who make up the inaugural class at in San Lorenzo, often needed reminding.

"I cried when I found out I was going to come here," he said. "My friends said, 'It's like prison.'"

A devout Catholic with an easy laugh and a soft, baby face, Francisco wasn't headed for trouble when he started at KIPP King as a freshman four years ago. At least, he didn't think so.

But for Norma, getting her eldest son into KIPP was insurance against the ruts she'd seen derail friends and cousins: gangs and teen pregnancies, apathy and failed promise.

When a recruiter from the school approached her in the market (this was back in the days before King's hundreds-long wait lists), she jumped at the chance.

"My mom knew friends who scared her a bit that I would do the same mistakes," Francisco said. "She was scared I would drop out, or I would run away, be involved with gang affiliation."

That first year at KIPP, he struggled. Detentions—long detentions—were the norm. Francisco rankled at the school's strict discipline, the sudden glut of expectations where few had existed. (If you weren't a troublemaker at where he'd come from, Francisco said, it was easy to go unnoticed.)

He suffered for the grades that had once come so easily. Teachers, administrators, and even other students' parents were "all over" him.

That year, he said, he grew defiant. Even the school uniform was a battle—he detested having to tuck in his shirt.  

Francisco credits a lecture from a teacher about being a role model and changing perceptions about young Latinos with his eventual attitude adjustment. But what kept him at KIPP, he said, was Norma. 

"I knew there was no point in fighting," he said. "I knew she would never let me leave this school." 

Francisco was born in Jalisco, Mexico, a place he wears like a badge of honor, and one where he still returns every summer. (When photographer and I first met him at prom, he was decked literally head-to-toe in home-state garb.)

He and his family moved to California when he was an infant. Seven years ago they moved again, from an apartment in East Oakland to a two-bedroom in-law unit behind his aunt's house in San Lorenzo. The two brothers shared one room, the two sisters the other. Their parents slept on the kitchen floor.

In many ways, Francisco is typical of the students here. When I asked whether he planned to buy one of the $40 yearbooks being advertised on posters plastered to every  locker and doorway (tagline: Obama would sign it), he simply shrugged and shook his head. His family can't afford it.

"I know a few of us didn't buy a yearbook," he said. "I don't really mind not having it."

He spent most of high school doing his homework in bed, though he could sometimes eke out space on the kitchen table.  His social life was similarly circumscribed—outside of schoolwork, he had just enough time to volunteer at church.

Until this week, he couldn't recall ever having a friend over. For one thing, there wasn't time.

Also, they didn't have a couch. 

But this week, everything changed.

This week, the family move into their first-ever real home. This week, Francisco will become the first member of his generation to graduate from high school. Exactly two months later, he will be the first one  in his entire extended family to go to college. 

"It’s a really exciting year for us," Francisco said. Which is an understatement, even for him.

He described the house as a surprise (he didn't know about it when we spoke a month earlier) but radiates pride and excitement as he details its amenities. Three rooms, two big family rooms, and an enormous back yard. Stuff he's certain his younger siblings will take for granted. 

Is he jealous?

A little, Francisco said. He's headed for the dorms. 

This fall, Francisco will start at Notre Dame de Namur University, a small Catholic school in Belmont, Calif. A surprising number of King's first graduates are headed to similarly small, private institutions.

"Not enough are going to small private schools!" said college counselor Sharon Cravanas."I would give anything if almost all of my students had that experience." 

Cravanas said that many of the small schools she helped steer students toward were actively recruiting first-generation college-goers with "high need."

They also offer a more nurturing climate than California State Universities, the goal I'd heard extolled all year at King's traditional public school counterparts in the district. 

Francisco said he had plenty of friends San Lorenzo and Arroyo High who'd applied and been accepted to CSUs at the behest of their college counselors, only to decline later because they didn't feel ready.

Though he doesn't know what to expect from college, Francisco knows he's prepared. Though maybe not to leave home. 

"I was so excited," he said of receiving the navy blue cap and gown he'll wear on Saturday. "I just took it home and I put it on and imagined myself in graduation."

He paused, scanning the classroom.

"It’s going to finally be over."