In 1994, when the doors of Gabrielino High School opened for the first time, hordes of 14-year-old freshmen walked in and took over.
Because Gabrielino was the San Gabriel Unified School District's first high school, officials had to introduce students one grade at a time, creating a first-year campus populated entirely by ninth-graders.
Other pressures complicated the adjustment: As teachers tried to convince students that theirs was a real school, a neighboring school district's lawsuit threatened to close Gabrielino. Meanwhile, a vocal handful of tax protesters opposed funding to enlarge the school.
Over the years, Gabrielino--a converted middle school campus--has inched toward normalcy. The threat of litigation eased, plans to seek more construction funding were finalized, and since September the school has had a full compliment of 1,370 students, from pubescent freshmen to seniors who shave.
Last week, Principal Dan Mooney kicked off official plans for the final validation: the first high school graduation the city of San Gabriel can call its own.
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In his office, Mooney stands in front of a flip chart he and his colleagues have constructed detailing graduation duties. Names are attached to tasks: Murphy: music. Crist: speakers. Tait: senior gift. More firsts need to be planned: college admission announcements, scholarship awards, homecoming and the senior
prom--standard high school ingredients that San Gabriel has never experienced.
"It kind of crept up on us," says the burly principal. "Someone had to say, 'Guys, guess what? We're going to have a graduation this year.' "
Senior Annie Allen, who remembers feeling cheated upon her arrival at Gabrielino in 1994, now concedes that the experience "helped us to mature a lot faster. I never got to feel that uncertainty that you feel when you're a freshman."
Before the establishment of Gabrielino, the San Gabriel school district operated only kindergarten through eighth grade; the city's teenagers left San Gabriel to attend high school in neighboring communitiies, usually Alhambra.
In 1992, residents approved a ballot measure that reorganized the district and created a local high school. Gabrielino began admitting students two years later, creating a world in which freshmen were king.
