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Graduates celebrate beating the odds

KIPP Northeast Denver Leadership Academy is rated as the top school in the city.

DENVER — Five years ago, there was an idea to start a charter school in a part of Denver where kids were not succeeding. Five years later, the KIPP Northeast Denver Leadership Academy is having its first graduation ever.

"We treat them like any other student regardless of their skin tone, language, and background, or ethnicity," Hassan Casanova, counselor, said. "They are held to the same high standards as a school on any side of town will do."

With every person that walks across the stage, there's a triumph. Nearly 80 percent of the graduates are the first people in their families to ever go to college. Yet, collectively, they've earned more than $2 million in scholarships according to Casanova.

"Yeah, we have kids going over 13 states to universities and colleges across the United States," Casanova said. "We're really breaking that wheel that like you stay here. No, you go out there and you prove what a kid from Denver can really do."

He's talking about kids like Kent Hernandez-Pedroza and his twin brother Kevin. They both received scholarships to attend colleges along the East Coast.

"It just means a lot to leave and set that standard in our school," Kent said. 

Kevin says being the first graduating class taught them a lot.

"Cause we didn't have no one to follow," Kevin said. "So, we became our own leaders to create the school we want it to be."

They became the men their parents, Jose Hernandez and Maria Pedroza, had hoped for.

"We are proud of the effort they have made the past few years of their lives because ever since they were young, they have focused on their education," Hernandez said.

Pedroza says it will be hard to let her sons go to school so far away, but she's excited for them.

"It's hard for me, but I know it's going to be great for them because they will spread their wings to fly on their own," Pedroza said.

Kevin feels that graduation is proof that he and his classmates can overcome anything.

"All of our students and all of us together have the same problems and we're mostly minorities and we can like connect to each other and we can support each other," Kevin said.

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