08:54 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 3, 2006

By TJ Aulds / Galveston County Daily News

TEXAS CITY — The Texas City class of 2006 is scheduled to graduate May 26. Forgive J’Nate Mitchell if she was allowed to receive her diploma a few weeks early.

After all, her graduation was eight years in the making.

Mitchell, 26, received her diploma this week, nearly a decade after others in her class turned their tassels. Trouble with passing a state-mandated math test and a coma delayed her graduation.

But she didn’t give up.

“I was determined to do this,” she said. “I couldn’t give up. I needed something for me and my baby.”

Mitchell was scheduled to graduate in May 1998, but was unable to pass the math portion of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills exam.

It was upsetting, she said.

“I have never been that good at taking tests.”

But she was determined to pass and win that diploma.

For four years, every time the opportunity came, she returned to her former high school to take the math test.

Each time, the results were not what she would have liked.

“It was frustrating, because I know I am a smart person and I wanted to get a [college] education,” she said.

Seeking a GED was out of the question, said Mitchell. She wanted a diploma.

New Year’s Day 2003 would be a day that almost derailed that quest.

“I had been not feeling good all day, and had these real bad headaches,” said Mitchell. “I went to sleep and never woke up.”

She had slipped into a coma. A brain tumor was the cause.

She didn’t come to for nearly three months and didn’t go home until that summer but, as she learned how to walk and use her hands again, she also focused on that math test.

“I was determined to get it done,” she said.

Almost as soon as she had regained her ability to get around on her own, Mitchell was back in school. Each Saturday, she would attend tutorial courses taught by Martha Richardson, who was impressed with her student’s determination.

“When others were sitting and giggling, she was there working away,” said the teacher. “You could see it in her face. A lesser person would have given up.”

Those Saturday sessions continued for three years. Mitchell said she kept pushing herself so she could have a shot at becoming a nurse and providing a better life for her 5-year-old daughter, Jalin Jackson.

Phone calls from Richardson and Richard Chapa, Texas City High School’s testing coordinator, kept her plugging away.

She took the math test for the final time in February and passed with a score of 73.

Mitchell received her diploma Monday in a teacher’s lounge at the high school, in a ceremony attended by a handful of teachers, counselors, her daughter and mom, Barbara Bogan.

It was hard to tell who was shedding more tears, the teacher, the student or the mother.

Young Jalin was all smiles, though.

She went to hug her mother and hollered, “Congratulations, my mamma.”