Glad to be a grad

FLORENCE

As Jeffrey Rivera stood alone at the head of the spacious classroom within the Pinal County jail walls, he considered himself a lone wolf.

At just 18 years old, Rivera has already fathered children. The daughter who coaxes a prideful laugh from him at every mention of her will be 2 in May, and he wants to make a better life for her than he has had. But to do that, he recognized that he had to first hold himself to higher standards.

That's what brought him into Olga Ruiz's classroom.

And Thursday , clad in cap and gown for the first time in his life, Rivera made a grand procession across the large room lined with classic motivational fare, the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance" playing for his brief march. After just three weeks, and three years since he last attended school, Rivera had earned his GED.

"I had to choose what was more important to me," he said during his acceptance speech, speaking to a sparse but encouraging crowd of jail personnel. "After all these years, I finally got my GED and I stand here in front of you today a graduate."

Rivera joined the roughly 40 graduates who had successfully completed the Pinal County Sheriff's Office Esperanza School program since June. With its small but steady class numbers, the program now boasts a graduation rate of 88 percent, several percentage points higher than the national average.

According to Pinal County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Navideh Forghani, the national average stands between 84 and 85 percent.

"It's not set up to fail," Ruiz said of the program, for which she is the only teacher at the county jail. "The only way you can fail is to not participate."

Ruiz has been with the Esperanza School for the last three years - and in the business of working with wayward folks since 1993 - during which time she could recall only two graduates who went on to reoffend and return to the facility. She does not track recidivism, but she was confident in her tally of successes versus more dismal outcomes.

"They know that they can do it," she said of the inmates who come through her class. "They've probably always known they can do it, but now, they can prove it to themselves in a program like this.

"To fail is to not try. We don't use that F-word here much."

In Rivera's case, his first day in class was something of a reunion for the two.

Ruiz has known him since he was 13, when his involvement with the wrong crowd and the influence of methamphetamine led him astray.

Back then, Ruiz recalled, her student did not have a plan. More importantly, he did not have a reason beyond himself to clean up his life.

"He knows life isn't about him so much anymore," she said. "He's brought children into the world, and he needs to make a better place for them. But it has to begin with him."

Rivera was arrested in January and charged for his alleged involvement in the robbery of the Stanfield Circle K. He now faces charges of armed robbery and aggravated assault for that incident as well as a litany of charges stemming from several other incidents earlier in 2016, according to court documents.

He has a hearing scheduled for April 3 before Pinal County Superior Court Judge Kevin White, the same judge who would typically preside over the jail's graduation ceremonies but who could not be there for Rivera due to an unfortunately timed meeting. According to the jail's inmate database, Rivera is expected to change his plea regarding several pending matters.

His defense attorney, Matt Long, did not return a request for comment regarding his plea or any agreement prospects.

At first, Rivera seemed reluctant to speak of his own responsibility for his current predicament. He told PinalCentral being in the wrong place at the wrong time landed him in the Adult Detention Center, and he accused the Pinal County Attorney's Office of bringing up incidents that occurred while he was still a minor simply to keep him behind bars.

"But now that I look back at it, I know right from wrong," he coalesced, Ruiz nodding as he acknowledged his own shortcomings. "I know where I shouldn't have been, and I know what we were doing at the time was wrong, so it kind of falls back on me."

Now, he has plans to attend Universal Technical Institute when he rejoins the outside world. He has a passion for cars, and he said a friend has lined up a job for him at a repair shop in Casa Grande.

He still has a long road ahead, but his achievements with Ruiz's help have instilled a confidence in him that he has not felt before.

"School was always difficult for me; never really liked it," he said. "But I'm not doing it for me anymore. I'm doing it for my little girl because I expect her to go and get her high school diploma."

Ruiz said her classes consist of anywhere from 13 students to just three as was the case with Rivera's group.

Everyone works at his or her own pace, sometimes finishing in fewer than the 60 days typically given but sometimes more. Graduations are held as needed, giving some honorees like Rivera the chance to be the center of attention.

"He came in on a mission," Ruiz said of the graduate, adding she'd be tracking his path moving forward.

But she had no doubt he could be successful like so many others she has seen.

"It takes courage, and sometimes, some of us aren't able to just go out and be that courageous," she said. "(But) if you don't try, you're never going to know.

"You are going to touch lives because you're ready."

The table the duo sat at during the interview was where Rivera had sat to get his work done. He thumped it gently and joked that it was the secret to his success, his good luck charm.

"I know I could've done it. I just didn't want to," Rivera said of a time when earning his GED was not a priority. "And now that I actually did, I feel really good about myself. ... All you need is hard work. Always put your (best) effort forward, and there's nothing you can't do."

He looked back at the Power-Point he had prepared to guide his speech, where a solitary wolf howled at the moon, representing everything he looks forward to now.

"I'm going to the moon. There's nothing that can stop me," he said. "Being in here is just a setback. When I get out, I'm on my rocket ship straight to the moon."