Nineteen-year-old Patricia Dominguez recalled that when she first arrived at Renaissance High School in Santa Paula last year, she was considered a freshman in her senior year of highschool.

"I thought to myself, 'There's no way I'm going to make it,' and I knew it wasn't going to be easy, she said. But "I knew I didn't want to be a 20-year-old and still in high school, let alone a high schooldropout."

She never gave up, completing all four years of high school inoneyear.

Dominguez graduated and received her diploma Tuesday night with the rest of the senior class during Renaissance High School's 42nd annual graduation ceremony held inside the Santa Paula High Schoolauditorium.

The school helps students short on academic credits, and 12 seniors from the school successfully transferred back at midyear to Santa Paula HighSchool.

Nine of the graduating seniors at Renaissance held academic honors. In addition, the students also performed many community-service projects, said the school's principal, RobinGillette.

"Many of our graduates are the first in their families to graduate from high school. They may be the first to go to college. Some, as young as they are, are already parents. Many have attended school by day, held down a job and worked on online classes to the wee hours of the morning," Gillettesaid.

Gillette noted that the students' journey "was not always smoothsailing."

"Along the way, they have encountered typhoons, whirlpools, and the occasional tsunami, all of which has taken a toll on their ship," Gillettesaid.

Along with the help of the school staff, members family and friends, she said, the students "navigated through the storm to achieve their first of many milestones tocome."

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In Santa Paula, Renaissance grads' success hailed