Straight-A student helps struggling Mt. Whitney High classmate graduate
You don’t have to be a teacher to make an impression on a student with a 0.4 GPA.
Just ask Jovanny Ramírez, who graduated from Mt. Whitney High School on Wednesday night (June 1) with straight A’s on his report card all through high school.
“Most of the highlights of my high school experience have happened in AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) and in my Spanish teacher’s classroom,” said Ramírez, 17, minutes before the graduation ceremony at Mineral King Bowl.
Among the students he met was Kevin Rodríguez.
“He started with a 0.4 GPA, and he’s here today with his cap and gown on,” said Ramírez. “It makes me really happy to see him here to actually be able to graduate.”
Ramírez, who is headed to UC Berkeley to major in industrial engineering, told Rodríguez to “just text me if you ever need help.”
“It was difficult to get him to concentrate,” said Ramírez. “During lunch, we would to to the library and I’d help him out with anything, or even stay after school to help him out.”
Ramírez was so invested in his friend’s success, that he let Rodríguez borrow a cap and gown an older brother had saved from his graduation from Mt. Whitney.
He is the second-youngest of six children born to Juan and Rebecca Ramírez. His three older siblings are Dreamers who set an example by going on to college.
A look at three other Mt. Whitney graduates:
▪ Dahiana Marías-Magaña, 18, is the daughter of farmworkers and is headed to UCLA where she will major in political science in hopes of someday becoming a lawyer.
She credits her parents, María Magaña and Valentine Marías, for doing everything possible to support her in school.
“What role haven’t they played? They’ve really done everything from driving me to my track meets late in the afternoon when they, like, come home super tired from work,” said Marías-Magaña, a long-distance runner in track.
“They never miss any of my awards like they’ve been super supportive. Like I wouldn’t have been able to do this without them.”
▪ Crystal Avellaneda-Zermano, 17, was among 17 graduates who earned a biliteracy seal (Ramírez and Marías-Magaña did also).
“That was important to me because it kind of reminds me of my culture, where I come from. And it helped me connect and learn a lot more about that,” said Avellaneda-Zermano, who is headed to UC Santa Bárbara and study math.
“I’m from like Mexican parents. They were born and raised there and then they came here to try to give me a better life. And so that kind of the way for me to connect back to them and kind of make sure I never forgot their language.
Avellaneda-Zermano credits her parents, Graciela Zermano and Bartolomé Avellaneda, for being “extremely supportive of me.”
“I tear up just thinking about it,” she said. “They are so important to me. They’re probably the reason why I try so hard to do everything that I tried in high school.”
Succeeding, she said, will allow her to “give them a better life. You know, the things that they never got to do when they were my age.”
▪ Eric Mazariegos-Maldonado, 18, plans to attend COS to study computer engineering and then transfer to a 4-year school.
In middle school, he became familiar with the Academy of Computer Science at Mt. Whitney, and decided that was his career path.
Mazariegos-Maldonado, the oldest of three children, said his parents have been pivotal in his education.
“My parents were always encouraging me to move forward no matter how difficult things got,” he said. “Their motivation was very helpful.”
Mt. Whitney High School
June 1, 2022
Mineral King Bowl / Visalia
Latino enrollment: 72.7%
Latino CIF Sealbearers: Crystal Avellaneda-Zermano, Dahiana Marías-Magaña, Eric Mazariegos-Maldonado, Derek Quintanilla, Jovanny Ramírez, Jesús Reveles, Margarita Reyna, Jade Ríos, Ariana Rivera-Gutiérrez, Ana Villalobos Serna
Highlight: The Mt. Whitney choir sang the official song from each branch of the military in a salute to graduates who are headed to the U.S. armed forces. Also, it took principal Bob Aguilar 14 minutes to rattle off the academic and athletic accomplishments of this year’s graduating class.
Quote: “Now it is time to invest in our futures, find your happiness … The future of our nation is going to be left in great hands,” said senior class speaker Anneliese Bueno.