Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 8, 1995                   TAG: 9506090023
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: S-27   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RANDY WALKER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NORTHSIDE HIGH SENIORS ARE READY FOR THE NEXT CHALLENGE

Sluder, 17, plans to live at home while she attends Virginia Western Community College for two years. Then, if she maintains a high enough grade-point average, she'll be automatically eligible to transfer into Radford University's nursing program. "It's a whole lot cheaper to go to Virginia Western and transfer," she says.

Sluder's strategy is becoming increasingly common among financially pressed middle-class families, says Northside guidance coordinator Esther Johnson.

"The financial situation on college is getting scary," Johnson says. "It used to be if you really wanted to go, you could come up with the money somehow. I've never seen it as bad as it seems to be now."

Despite the challenges, most Northside graduates still manage to go to college. In 1994, 48 percent of graduating seniors went on to four-year colleges, while 29 percent enrolled in Virginia Western or another two-year institution. Eleven percent took postsecondary business or technical training, while the remaining 12 percent entered the military or the work force. When this year's 270-member class graduates Friday, it will probably follow a similar pattern, Johnson says.

The following are snapshots from the class of 1995:

Demarkco Armstrong, 17, has an unusual perspective on American high school life. In August 1994, he moved to Roanoke from Okinawa, Japan where his father, a gunnery sergeant, was stationed with the Marines.

Armstrong attended American schools on Okinawa for grades 9, 10 and 11. The basic difference between high school there and here, he says, is that kids in military-base schools are used to being uprooted and make friends more quickly.

"But Northside is a good atmosphere to adapt to," he says. "The kids understand that everybody's human - they don't alienate you."

Armstrong says he made friends easily. "But then again, I've been doing it all my life."

Something else he's used to doing is adapting to new academic requirements.

"It gets hard, because different schools require different curriculums, but once you buckle down and decide what teachers want out of you, it gets easier."

Yasmin Jilla, 17, is one of five seniors who attended the Roanoke Valley Governor's School for Science and Technology. For the past two years, she has studied the effect of certain nutrients on rat cancer cells. She found that large doses of vitamin C could decrease the growth rate of rat leukemia. She also found that selenium and Vitamin C could either increase or decrease the growth rate of rat breast cancer, depending on the doses. Jilla conducted the research at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Salem.

This year, Jilla won first place in the Governor's School and the Roanoke County science fairs, and third place in the Virginia science fair.

Doing the research "helped me realize what I wanted to do in the future, which is become an oncologist," she says. Jilla is going to the University of Virginia, where she plans to major in biology and pre-medicine.

Sluder spent three weeks in Germany the summer before 10th grade. In the summer of 1993, she returned for three more weeks as a majorette with Spirit of America - The National Honor Band.

Sluder also attended classes in Germany, where school is in session all year. She discovered that students are allowed much more independence in Germany. "The high school was more like a college. If you didn't have a class, or if the teacher wasn't there, you could just leave."

Students also enjoy more latitude in their social lives. "It wasn't unusual for us to go to a party on a school night and stay until 12 o'clock," she says.