It hardly mattered that Friday’s graduation from Second Start’s alternative high school included only five students, not the hundreds who will get their diplomas next Saturday.
Nor did it matter that it was held in relative obscurity, in the Concord High auditorium in front of 40 people, not at sun-splashed Memorial Field, as is scheduled next week, along jam-packed South Fruit Street.
What mattered to Sandra Gaudreau and her son, Dylan Ortiz, was that Ortiz earned his high school diploma, beating long odds to get it. He’ll attend Sterling College in Vermont this fall and study sustainable agriculture.
“Very proud,” Gaudreau said. “I can not describe how proud I am. He’s exceeded on so many levels that I didn’t think he would. I was wrong.”
Gaudreau, who suffers from several car-crash ailments plus diabetes, raised Ortiz and his half-brother virtually by herself. Meanwhile, Ortiz suffers from severe anxiety, and he knew early, midway through his freshman year at Concord High, that he needed a different path to get a degree.
Like Friday’s other graduates – Jackie Arsenault, Brian Austin, Jason Elmes and Max Jaques – the usual way of doing things simply was not for him.
Any of these graduates would have made a good column. Jim Snodgrass, executive director of Second Start, suggested Ortiz. Concord High proved to be too big, too overwhelming, for Ortiz to tap into his potential.
“I was very anxiety stricken at the time as a freshman, and I still kind of am,” Ortiz said. “It hasn’t really left me, but I’ve learned to cope with it. I couldn’t stay in front of a classroom and present something. It would really get to me and I was failing because of that.”
Second Start’s smaller classes and policies that adapt to students’ needs have made it an attractive option for kids who struggle in the traditional learning environment.
There are stories behind each student who moves through this program, stories focused on troubled pasts, hard-to-reach goals and challenges. The personal problems that make Second Start necessary for some run the gamut, from mental illness, to addiction, to gender identity, to broken homes.
“Most kids are intensely private about what they’ve been through, and they’ve been through a lot,” said Bill Mealey, Second Start’s director. “Perseverance is the name of the game, and we’re there to support them and help them to keep their heads up.”
It worked in the case of Ortiz. He has long hair, a wispy goatee and a quiet manner. His background story has forever been included in movies and books, the one about the child raised by a single mother who unselfishly raises her children so their lives will be better than hers.
Gaudreau’s own health problems added to the pressure her son naturally felt.
“He was always afraid something was going to happen to me and he would not have anyone in his life,” Gaudreau said. “He always worried.”
She’s been divorced from Ortiz’s father for more than 10 years. She said he was never a consistent presence in his son’s life. The family has jumped around through the years, from Nashua to Peterborough to Tilton to Concord, because of financial issues.
Gaudreau, though, has remained the one constant in Ortiz’s life.
“My mother is one heck of a person, I’ll tell you that much,” Ortiz said. “I don’t know how she did it. She hasn’t had a job in a long time, and she has had to make due with what she’s had.”
That’s included disability payments, yet Gaudreau was able to care for both Ortiz and his half brother, who’s 22 and recently moved out of the house.
“It was very hard,” Gaudreau said. “But we seemed to have gotten through it. Two great boys, and I accomplished what I wanted to do and made them into decent men who did not turn into their father.”
Friday night’s graduation was attended by about 40 people. Each senior was introduced by a different faculty member. We learned about Jackie Arsenault, who, according to Sandy Benard, tossed out a few F-bombs before accepting the program and appreciating the opportunity she had been given.
We learned about Max Jaques, who, said Ray Burstein, had a sense of humor that won’t soon fade from the small school on North State Street.
And we learned about Ortiz from Isaac Sargent, the assistant program director, who said, “He is part of the soul that is Second Start. He’s grown in confidence.”
“The best decision I have ever made,” Ortiz told me. “Honestly.”