Meet 15 year old Isabella Miller, Coronado High School’s youngest graduate ever. With a soft-spoken voice and a beautiful smile, Isabella will already be choosing her freshman college courses before her milestone sweet sixteen birthday this September.
When asked how it feels to already be a high school graduate at such a young age, Isabella says, “It feels pretty great! It’s a relief to be done with high school because there’s a lot more that I can do now and go out and experience without the stress of high school.”
How did Isabella manage to complete her high school graduation requirements two years ahead of schedule? After spending her first few days of high school as a freshman at Coronado High School, Isabella and her parents decided that the CHS campus itself wasn’t the best fit for her. It was then that she enrolled at Palm Academy, which is also part of the Coronado Unified School District. Palm Academy, an alternative setting, is a “student-centered learning environment” that promotes “social, emotional, and academic skill development for all learners.” According to its website, Palm Academy’s focus is “on the needs of the whole learner: including different learning styles and environments, self-paced instruction, character education and service learning.”
“I went through Palm Academy, and just decided high school was not for me. I knocked out all of my school work because it’s self-paced; you can go as fast as you want or as slow as you want. I just took everything twice as fast,” she says of the requirements necessary to earn her high school diploma.
During the 2015-2016 academic year Palm Academy merged with Coronado High School, which meant that Isabella was able to participate in CHS’s graduation ceremony on June 9, 2016. Palm Academy held its own informal, yet more personal graduation ceremony as well, where students were able to turn their tassels to the left on their graduation caps, symbolizing they were now high school graduates.
How did Isabella feel as she walked with her fellow CHS graduates at the graduation ceremony on June 9th? Her face lights up as she shares, “It was pretty cool. I was pretty proud of myself because a lot of people told me I couldn’t do it, and I did it!” Her mom agrees wholeheartedly saying, “She had some support, but she had a lot of people telling her she wasn’t going to be able to do it.”
When Isabella first started attending Palm Academy, led by Principal Kevin Nicolls, there were only nine students, but by the time she graduated earlier this month, enrollment was at twenty-seven, indicating that self-paced education, while not for all, is slowly becoming more popular for students who are looking for something different than the traditional high school setting. “You’ve got kids who just don’t do well in the traditional setting, and Isabella was one of those kids,” says Isabella’s mother Christina. “To get her from where she was when she came into that program, and have her graduate two years early is beyond amazing,” she adds, marveling at her daughter’s accomplishment.
What part of the traditional high school setting of Coronado High School wasn’t a good fit for Isabella? “The social aspect and some of the teachers too,” Isabella responds, noting that the learning style that bests suits her individual needs wasn’t necessarily the style employed by some of her teachers. At Palm Academy she experienced a more personalized approach to education, which helped her flourish, especially in her favorite subject math.
Melinda Clay, a member of the Palm Academy staff, says, “We all have obstacles in our life. Some people can’t find their way around the obstacles, but Isabella not only found a way around them, she crushed them in her footsteps. I am proud I was a part of her life. She is a special young lady, and I too have learned from her.”
Principal Kevin Nicolls says, “Isabella is a rare example of a student at this age who has the discipline and motivation to succeed in a self-paced program. One of my main objectives as an educator is to impel (sometimes compel) a shift in students’ value systems, from extrinsic to intrinsic. If it happens, it’s usually the older students who start to see a little further down the road. Isabella became the primary stakeholder in her own success and ‘owned’ it [high school]. I hope her peers learn from her stellar example of what can happen when you realize your only limits are self-imposed.”
He continues, “While reclaiming her self-worth and demonstrating herself as an exceptional student, she took full advantage of our self-paced program, pushing the accelerator to the floor, and keeping it there. Isabella’s leadership as a very intelligent, diligent, and helpful student has a positive impact on all of us and is a strong reminder to never give up on yourself or others in need.” He adds that the entire staff and student body at Palm Academy “love Izzy.”
Isabella’s father, who is in the military, is being transferred to Fallon, Nevada this summer. While the family will be sad to say goodbye to Coronado, the place they’ve called home for almost the last six years, they look forward to new adventures in Nevada. Having already lived in Colorado and Japan, another move is something Isabella seems to take in stride. She will be attending the Fallon branch of Western Nevada College, where she is hoping to complete her associate’s degree during her father’s tour there.
What kind of reaction does Isabella anticipate from her future peers at Western Nevada College? “I don’t know,” she laughs. “They’ll probably be shocked,” she speculates.
“Fallon is a pretty small community,” Christina says, “and I think it’s going to be a nice safety net for Isabella. Christina is hopeful that Isabella “will get her bearings” as she discovers what college is like before transferring to a four year university, possibly away from home, when she is seventeen. Her mom is relieved that the community college is there in Fallon so her daughter doesn’t have to leave the nest too soon. She says that her daughter is academically ahead of where she needs to be, but knows that only time will allow Isabella to continue to mature socially.
What does this 15 year old high school graduate plan on studying in college? “Forensic psychology,” she says, adding, “Psychology sounds really cool.”
Does Isabella have any advice for any high school aged students who are considering Palm Academy? “It’s good if you’re self-motivated,” she responds. She says that when she initially started school there she thought, “Whatever! I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to sit in this room for four hours a day. At first it took a lot to motivate myself, even to get the credits for that year.” Once Isabella’s determination blossomed, however, she was on her way, and realized that the only person who stood between her and academic success was the girl in the mirror.
For Christina, she says the most challenging part of having her daughter attend Palm Academy was initially learning to “trust the process” as she placed her daughter’s education into Kevin and Melinda’s hands. Christina offers nothing but praise for the teachers and staff at Palm Academy, which is a one room school house. With multiple grade levels together, there is one teacher per academic subject available to help guide students and offer assistance as needed. “You’re on your own unless you ask them for help,” Isabella says. Both she and her parents needed to adjust to this self-pacing style at Palm Academy, but they are now big proponents of the idea that students need more control of their own learning.
Christina is the one who really persuaded Isabella to consider Palm Academy after watching her daughter try to “endure” social aspects of CHS that made her daughter feel like CHS wasn’t the place for her. “As a mom you know these things, and I saw it coming to a head,” Christina says of what went on before Isabella decided to transfer to Palm Academy in November of her freshman year. “Palm kind of has a reputation for being a school for the bad kids,” Christina says, “and that may have been true at some point in time, but definitely in the past few years they have captured kids who failed for other reasons or who weren’t thriving for other reasons. I saw it [the decision for Isabella to attend Palm Academy] as an opportunity.”
Isabella learned at Palm Academy that she needed to put forth effort to succeed; it was up to her to decide whether she was going to continue down the path she had been on where she wasn’t giving school her all, or whether she was going to make a concerted effort to prove to herself that she could become a star student. “She took the hard way through,” Christina says, “but she figured it out, and came out much better.”
While Isabella has proven that she’s academically prepared for college, does she feel like she’s up to the challenge of college? “I feel like I’m ready for the college in Nevada because it’s small, and there aren’t a lot of people. I think I’m ready for that.” Her mom adds, “It’s not too big. I think it will be a good transition.”
In the meanwhile before she starts college this fall, Isabella will experience the ultimate graduation present, a trip to Paris with her mom as well as Christina’s stepmom. As someone who’s an artist, Isabella plans on drawing and taking lots of pictures as well as “visiting the Eiffel Tower and eating a lot of good food.” Wherever Isabella’s future may lead her, whether it’s Europe, Nevada, or anywhere else in the world, we hope she continues to thrive as she embarks on a bright future.
