Spring is a season for reaching milestones, and such is the case this year for J.A. Fair High School senior Dejah Taylor and for the after-school and summer program that has been a part of her life since eighth grade.
Taylor, 17, is valedictorian of the Class of 2016 at Little Rock's J.A. Fair. She will graduate with her classmates at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Verizon Arena, the first of five Little Rock School District graduations to be held for some 1,400 seniors next week.
Taylor, who in addition to being valedictorian is Fair's student body president, a former Fair cheerleader and an Arkansas Governor's School participant, said she will attend Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., on scholarship in the fall. Her plans are to study chemical engineering or biochemistry with a long-term goal of starting a cosmetics company.
Taylor's class rank is a particular point of pride for the Positive Atmosphere Reaches Kids program, better known as P.A.R.K. She is the first school valedictorian in the 21-year history of the program, which provides academic support and recreational activities for 250 eighth- through 12th-graders at the Donald W. Reynolds facility on Geyer Springs Road.
Most of the students accepted into the five-year nonprofit program, founded by former professional football player Keith Jackson, have grade-point averages below 2.5 but are deemed to have the capability to do better and graduate from high school.
Little Rock School District
Graduation ceremonies for Taylor, her Fair classmates and the other Little Rock district high schools will be held over three days, Tuesday through Thursday, at Verizon Arena.
Little Rock School District organizers of the ceremonies are asking people who plan to attend the graduations to be aware in advance of Verizon Arena security measures that include walk-through magnetometers and on-table inspections of bags, cell phones, cameras, keys and other metal objects. Handbags smaller than 14-by-14-by-3 inches and diaper bags for parents with infants are permitted. Noisemakers, balloons, posters, briefcases, computer bags and backpacks are not permitted in the arena.
Following the Tuesday event for Taylor and her Fair High classmates, there will be a graduation ceremony for Hall High seniors at 8:30 p.m.
The Parkview Magnet High graduation will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday. The McClellan High graduation will be at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. Central High's graduation will be at 6 p.m. Thursday. A graduation ceremony for students in the district's Accelerated Learning Center program was held Tuesday at Greater Second Baptist Church on Geyer Springs Road.
Each high school is holding its own baccalaureate service Sunday at their respective campuses.
Rep. Charles Blake, D-Little Rock, will be the keynote speaker at the baccalaureate service at 6 p.m. at Central High, 1500 S. Park St.
Genine Latrice Perez, executive director of the Arkansas Youth Leadership Initiative, will speak at 5 p.m. at Hall High, 6700 H St.
Roderick L. Smothers Sr., president of Philander Smith College, will speak at 4 p.m. at J.A. Fair High, 13420 David O. Dodd Road.
Antwan Phillips, an attorney with the Wright, Lindsey & Jennings law firm and a McClellan alumus, will speak at 3 p.m. at McClellan High, 9417 Geyer Springs Road.
Grover Evans, a paralympic athlete and motivational speaker, will address high school seniors at 4 p.m. at Parkview Magnet High, 2501 John Barrow Road.
Motivation for excellence
The events leading up to and surrounding graduation are a time of recollection and reflection for Taylor; her parents, Alecia Allen and Randy Taylor; and her P.A.R.K. support network.
"My grandfather and I were always very close, and in my seventh-grade year he passed away," Taylor said. Robert McDuffie, a Vietnam War veteran, died of a heart attack at 63.
"I was really sad and I kind of acted out at school -- just a little -- at Mabelvale Middle. I wasn't living up to my full potential."
Taylor learned about P.A.R.K. through her school, applied and interviewed for the program. She began participating in the daily and summer tutoring and mentoring programs, as well as the field trips. At the same time, she recommitted herself to promises she made to her grandfather and to herself to be at the top of her high school class and to be student body president.
"P.A.R.K. helped a lot," she said. "They had a lot of resources and tutors. If you needed help on a project, they would help. I got geometry tutoring."
She also cited the spiritual ministry the organization provides, which she said helped her and others focus on the positive and keep out the negative in the world.
"We also had mentors, women who had already been there and done that and could give us good advice," she said.
Allen, who works evenings in maintenance management at Remington Arms, said she knew early in her daughter's school career that Taylor was goal-oriented, was able to persevere and had inherited her father's interest in science. Allen also saw in her daughter an inclination to be a solitary soul.
"That's why I sent her to P.A.R.K., to be around other children and to get those social skills up," Allen said.
Monique Hickman, education outreach coordinator for P.A.R.K., said Taylor is distinguished by her tenacity and focus.
"Academics have always been a huge priority for her," Hickman said. "So coming into the program, when she developed a mindset that she wanted to excel, all she needed was support from the staff. We supported her, but once she made the decision, she locked into it and ran, and you never stopped her from running."
Among her activities, Taylor participated in the AVID college preparation program at school and in the Arkansas Commitment program outside of school, which assists students of minority races and ethnicities in getting into college.
"Any extracurricular activity that she could participate in that would help her achieve her goals, she did it," Hickman said. "She's managed to balance it all and keep the grade-point as high as it is. She is just extremely driven."
Pulaski County Special School District
In addition to the Little Rock School District graduations, the Pulaski County Special School District is also celebrating the completion of high school, with four of the district's six high schools holdng ceremonies today at the Jack Stephens Center on the University of Arkansas at Little Rock campus.
Those start with the Maumelle High graduation ceremony at 9 a.m., followed by the Wilbur D. Mills University Studies High graduation at 11:30 a.m. The Joe T. Robinson High graduation will be at 2 p.m.
North Pulaski High, which will no longer be a high school after this year, will hold its final graduation ceremony at 4:30 p.m.
Sylvan Hills High School in the Pulaski County Special district held its graduation ceremony Thursday. Jacksonville High School, which is in its final year as part of the Pulaski County Special district, held its graduation ceremony Friday at Jan Crow Stadium.
Jacksonville and North Pulaski High campuses are part of the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District, which will begin operating independent of the Pulaski County Special district July 1.
The current Jacksonville High campus will be the high school for the new district until a new high school building is built. The North Pulaski High campus will become the Jacksonville Middle School campus in the new district.
North Little Rock School District
The graduation ceremony for North Little Rock High School was Monday.
Metro on 05/21/2016