At 35, she’s student council president and inspiring others after weathering the deepest loss

Yesenia Perez’s kids were speechless when they saw the photo — their mom beaming in a royal blue graduation cap and gown.

“They were astonished,” said Perez. “Their eyes were stars and hearts.”

Perez is 35, her son a freshman in high school and her daughter an eighth grader. Nathan and Maylanie knew that their mom’s teen years were chaotic, and that she had left high school without a diploma, then lived through a stretch so dark it wasn’t clear she’d ever emerge.

Perez had tried to earn her diploma multiple times after she dropped out. It never stuck. So when she enrolled in night school at age 34, even she wasn’t sure whether finishing was in the cards.

Now, Perez is a week away from completing her final class, and the student council president with report cards full of A’s was recently chosen by the Philadelphia School District as one of two students of the month from among the system of 113,000 pupils.

Coming up on the holiday season, it’s safe to say that Perez is as thankful as she’s ever been.

“It’s just so good,” said Perez — of the recognition she’s receiving now, of the obstacles she’s surmounted. “I’m proud of myself, my family is proud of me. I did this all by myself.”

Perez grew up in Kensington, at F and Allegheny, one of seven siblings. Her mother moved the family to Puerto Rico when Perez was 8, then back to Philadelphia when she was 12.

Moving around was disruptive, and Perez was restless. Between language barriers and other issues, Perez had to repeat three grades.

“There was too much going on, my mom was traveling back and forth. It messed me up,” said Perez.

By the time she graduated from Stetson Middle School, Perez was 16. She briefly attended Edison High, then switched to an alternative school for overage, under-credited students.

But it didn’t last. Perez, by her own admission, was a handful. She fought and didn’t care much about work.

“I argued with all the teachers. I had a super temper. I just didn’t want to be told what to do; I wanted to be my own boss. I had my file that was full of pink slips from stupid stuff that I did,” said Perez.

Marcus Delgado, then the principal of Fairhill Community High School, Perez’s first alternative program, remembers Perez vividly.

“She was one of my difficult students to deal with,” Delgado said. That’s being kind, Perez said — Delgado once had to escort her out of the building because she was so disruptive.

Eventually, Perez met the man who would be her children’s father and decided she was finished with school. She was 17.

“I just wanted to stay in the street, and I decided I didn’t need no education,” she said.

Perez gave birth to three children, Javier, Nathan, and Maylanie.

And then, in 2011, Perez lost Javier — Javielito to his family, a boy with soft brown eyes and close-cropped hair. The 4-year-old picked up a gun that his father thought was hidden in the house and shot himself.

Javier Merle Sr., Perez’s husband, went to prison for nine years on charges of involuntary manslaughter. The loss of their oldest child sent Perez “out of my mind,” she said. “I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat. The situation I was going through was unbearable.”

It took nearly losing Nathan and Maylanie to the child welfare system for Perez to get herself together, with the help of her mother and her sisters and intensive therapy.

“My kids made me strong,” said Perez. She tried to go back to school to earn her GED, but the program wasn’t a good fit and life kept intruding. Perez moved to Ohio for a fresh start, then to Philadelphia again to be closer to her family and to Javielito’s grave.

Things started to gel for Perez last year, when Merle came home from prison, enrolled in trade school, and graduated into steady work as an HVAC technician. A cousin of Perez’s had experienced success at One Bright Ray, an alternative program that allows nontraditional students to earn diplomas.

Nathan and Maylanie were getting closer to high school themselves, and Perez wanted to set a good example. So Perez took a chance and enrolled herself. Every day, she would drive her kids to school, work as a personal-care assistant, then drive from her home in the Northeast to East Erie Avenue and K Street, where One Bright Ray’s Simpson campus had its night school.

“It was something that I always wanted to do, but I couldn’t — life just hit me,” she said. “But I think that me coming back to school, it was meant for me now.”

Teacher Sally-Ann Naidoo saw something in Perez the moment she walked into her English class: This was a student who was perceptive, smart, but above all, hardworking.

“Yessy would tell me, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, I don’t think I’m doing it right,’” Naidoo said. She may have lacked confidence at first, but she did not lack determination. “She would strive to do better, every day.”

After years away from school, Perez was hungry for knowledge. Her son teased her that she was too old for high school — he’s now at George Washington High, and her daughter’s at Baldi Middle School — but Perez plowed on.

And Perez found herself growing into a leader.

Whatever she could volunteer for, she did, organizing a Hispanic heritage celebration, winning the student council president role, running a school store to sell snacks for people rushing from work to school without time to eat dinner, helping older students navigate technology challenges.

“Coming to school it was like a free time, away from reality — bills, rent, husband, kids. I get to come here and learn with people that I actually build relationships with. It’s kind of awesome,” she said.

Throwing herself into high school at age 35 was a revelation. One Bright Ray students are close, Perez said, and they and staff have worked together to create traditional school moments she never had as a teenager: a prom — she and her husband in coordinating red outfits — and a senior class outing to an Italian restaurant.

“I’d never been to a restaurant like that,” she said. “I had to sit there classy, like with a napkin. It was decent for me, like a little fantasy.”

After Perez finishes her final class Nov. 29, she’s planning to become a notary public. She’d also like to work for One Bright Ray, helping other older students adjust to school after decades away.

Naidoo said Perez is a problem-solver, inclusive, and kind, someone her teachers admire.

On Tuesday night, Perez stood at the foot of a table overflowing with food — turkey, stuffing, greens, macaroni and cheese, pasteles, and rice, an early Thanksgiving dinner for the night school. She directed things, making sure plates were full, deciding who would say grace and where to place the cans of lemonade and iced tea.

After Principal Kareem Edwards helped serve the food, he watched Perez and her classmates joke and share moments of fellowship between classes.

All of his students, who range from teenagers to middle age and beyond, are resilient, Edwards said.

But Perez, he said, “is unique, an inspiration,” he said. “She’s full of service, with a big heart. Other students look at her and say, ‘If she can do it, maybe I can do it.’”

And Delgado, Perez’s first alternative school principal, who once had to physically throw her out of the building? After becoming CEO of One Bright Ray, he went on to become deputy secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

“I told her, ‘Someday, you’ll get that diploma, and I’m going to be the one to give it to you,’” Delgado said. (He said he’ll keep his promise at the ceremony this summer, when all One Bright Ray students from the year are honored.)

Sounds good to Perez.

“I want my kids to look at their parents and say, ‘We came from a struggle, and look at where we are now,’” she said.