Many heard the sound of 380 voices chanting “ONE-THREE! ONE-THREE!” during the last rally. But who knew that several of those seniors might have been better off repping the class of ‘12.5 instead?

At the end of last semester, five seniors graduated early, according to Assistant Principal LaSandra White.
Hayley Hedrich, Izzie Silveira, and Jackie Pritchard are three of these recent graduates. Each received their diploma at the end of last semester.

Hedrich said she started at Santa Barbara City College in January, and Silveira and Pritchard said they will both be working before starting college next year. Silveira and Pritchard both said they are using this semester to prepare for the future.

“People try to cram in a bunch of stuff in the summer, and now we have eight months to prepare,” Silveira said. “I want to learn how to cook for college, and I want to travel.”

Hedrich said that she had already made the choice to attend community college after high school by junior year, and felt ready to move on as soon as possible.

“My last year was kind of like my senior year to me, in a way,” Hedrich said. “I just felt like I was overstaying my welcome.”

Pritchard and Silveira both said that early graduation also made financial sense.

“For me it was my parents. I was thinking about just kind of taking a burden off them to get money raised for myself to go off to college next year,” Pritchard said. Pritchard said she doubled in social studies and English in order to graduate early.

This scheduling modification was fairly common for early grads. Each had to pass American Government and Economics, and satisfy their remaining English requirements before leaving Redwood.

Hedrich said she made the choice to graduate early on the first day of her senior year.

“I had to wait for the first couple days because you couldn’t talk to your counselor until the fourth day, then I put in a slip to my counselor because I had to change my schedule around,” Hedrich said. “Once I did that, I was basically all set to graduate early because I had all my credits from previous years.”

Pritchard said that taking two classes in the same department, Government and Economics, was difficult when tests fell on the same day, but that the combination also had its benefits.
“It was helpful at some times, because they both deal with current issues so they really get into each other, with the economy and the government,” Silveira said. “It’s cool.”

Hedrich said that she believes going straight into SBCC will give her an advantage over her peers in the long run.

“From what I’ve heard about the whole college world, getting your classes freshman year is really hard to do because everyone ahead of you has priority over you,” Hedrich said. “So now that I’m doing my first semester of college earlier than the whole class of 2013 is, it gives me a greater chance to get into my classes next fall.”

Silveira, Pritchard, and Hedrich said that the transition to life outside a bell schedule has been strange.

“Now it’s kind of like, self motivation,” Pritchard said. “We’re self-motivated to keep going because we’re no longer legally bound to be in school, so we have to push ourselves to get things done.”

Hedrich said some of the norms of high school are suddenly a thing of the past.

“I’m packing right now, and you can’t really procrastinate on life. In high school you can be like, ‘Oh, I’ll do my homework tomorrow night.’ I leave tomorrow — I can’t pack tomorrow.”

Early graduates are still able to walk at graduation and attend school activities such as Prom and rallies, according to assistant principal LaSandra White.