The first graduating class at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders receives their diplomas this Saturday.
Among the graduates is 17-year-old Ana González, who was the subject of an Austin American-Statesman story profiling the school’s first grads.
She’s among an impressive group: The Statesman reports that of the 97 students that started at the AISD school after its opening in 2007, 45 left the demanding program. But, according to the Richards school, all 52 of its graduating seniors have been accepted to four-year colleges. And nearly three-fourths of the grads will be the first in their family to make it to college.
While the KUT News staff salutes all the graduates, it takes a special interest in González’s achievements, since she served as a KUT intern for one week in 2012. (The Ann Richards school requires all its juniors to participate in an internship program; KUT continues to participate in the program.)
One of the blog posts González wrote for KUT in her time interning covered a similar initiative: a senior at Manor New Technology High School who raised funds to offer a $500 college scholarship to an undocumented student:
“Growing up in a Hispanic community, I was aware of these individuals,” Audrey Vivar says of undocumented students. “They were my friends, they were my neighbors, they were people I had grown up with … It seemed odd that these kids were growing up and they wanted to contribute but they couldn’t.”
After that, González went on to launch a similar program – raising funds to help an undocumented student apply for the Obama administration's deferred action program. The Statesman notes:
Last year, Ana raised money for seniors at the school who had been brought into the country as children without legal documentation, so they could apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which would allow them to work legally, among other benefits.
Since launching her fundraising drive, González’s efforts were profiled by FOX 7 and Univision 62. And going forward: the Statesman reports González is westward bound, to the University of Texas at El Paso.
