Optimist High School

The graduating class didn't even fill the front row. Martwaunn Thornton -- who entered high school defiant and difficult -- fiddled with the gold tassel dangling from his mortarboard. Near him was Alfred Stern III, who arrived reading at the seventh-grade level two years ago fresh from Juvenile Hall. Augustine Magana, on his third high school, showed up to support his friends even though he didn't make the front row because he won't graduate until August.

The graduating class didn't even fill the front row. Martwaunn Thornton -- who entered high school defiant and difficult -- fiddled with the gold tassel dangling from his mortarboard. Near him was Alfred Stern III, who arrived reading at the seventh-grade level two years ago fresh from Juvenile Hall. Augustine Magana, on his third high school, showed up to support his friends even though he didn't make the front row because he won't graduate until August.

Deonta Black was hanging with gangbangers and selling weed around Perris just a few years ago, trying to scrape together what he calls a "little fame on the streets." The 18-year-old landed in juvenile hall for nine months. He was angry. He talked back. So authorities shipped him to Optimist Youth Homes & Family Services, a Highland Park group home for at-risk or abused kids -- many of whom are on probation -- to finish high school.

The Cal State Dominguez Hills baseball team will try to end a six-game California Collegiate Athletic Assn. losing streak when it plays host to league leader Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in a three-game series starting today. The teams will play a single game at 3 p.m. today and a doubleheader at noon Saturday. Dominguez Hills, which has slipped from 10th to 25th in the latest NCAA Division II rankings by Collegiate Baseball magazine, is 17-17-1 overall and 7-9 in the CCAA.

Success is hurting the Optimist Youth Home, even as it works to reform more and more troubled teens. The Highland Park facility has doubled the amount of children it serves and started new kinds of therapy in the last 15 years but with no corresponding growth in space. This has prompted some creative innovations: On a recent day a therapist counseled a boy on an outdoor bench, even as a raucous football team practiced on a nearby field.

"I want to AWOL so bad, but I gotta maintain and do my little time here," said 16-year-old Ruben, eyes trained on the barracks-style buildings he calls home. It was a bleak, drizzling day at the Optimist Boys' Home in Highland Park, and Ruben had ditched his auto mechanics class because he was bored, he said. So he lounged against the stairwell and talked to a visitor about the home. Tattoos marked his thin arms. A gold crucifix dangled from a chain around his neck. "It's a good place.

On a winter night almost three years ago, joe jones dialed a popular party line where young thugs trade insults and try to pick up girls. The 13-year-old gangbanger seemed to have struck gold. A sweet-sounding teenager was coming on to him. She wanted to hook up. Tonight. So Joe did something the party line managers adamantly warn against--he gave her his address. Jones, a Blood from the Fruit Town Brims, didn't know the girl was undercover.