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High school graduation season is just beginning. During the next couple weeks, teenagers will stride across a stage in cap and gown and grab a diploma. But a few soon-to-be graduates in Charlotte took a non-traditional path to graduation. When the this-must-be-a-graduation music begins, about 40 adults turn proudly toward the door. They're in a meeting room at the Children and Family Services Center uptown. Five young men walk in single file. It's not a graduation ceremony, but it is a celebration. They're on track to graduate despite their past. "I had broken into somebody's house," said 17-year-old Trevante Long. "I was charged with breaking and entering and larceny after breaking and entering," said 18-year-old Jamal Tate. Trevante and Jamal entered Mecklenburg County's jail high school program. It's mandatory for teenagers in jail who are at least 16 years old, and it started in the mid-1990s. Before that, Sheriff Chipp Bailey said kids like Trevante and Jamal struggled when they got back to their high school classrooms. "They were so far behind they wouldn't stay in school," Bailey said. "They would drop out. They would go out and re-offend, and we would get the same kids back." In jail their class routine is a lot like in high school - five days a week, from eight to three forty five. And once they get out of jail, mentors with Communities In Schools, a national dropout prevention group, routinely check in and make sure they're still attending classes. Those who are too far off track instead work toward a G.E.D. About 80 teenagers are taking classes at any given time. The boys end up at Mecklenburg County Jail North. Keith Cradle manages the program. "A lot of our kids come in dejected, not wanting to do the school program, not really working as hard as they could have, especially out in the community, where the school system quote-unquote wasn't working for them," Cradle said. Jamal said that was his experience at Waddell High School. "I was at a point in my life where I didn't think I would graduate," Jamal said. "I knew school was important, but I just didn't care anymore. Just like, what's the point? I'm always messing up. I'm always doing bad. This is going to be my life - what's the point of going to school if I'm just going to end up here?" And he got a bit of tough love from his mother. He had been in jail briefly twice before, and Erica Swinney said she was fed up. " I had made the decision that I wasn't going to go see him because I don't want to promote this anymore," Swinney said. "I did talk on the phone with him, but no, I didn't go see him this last time." Two months later when he got out, she noticed a difference. She credits the jail high school program. Trevante's mom, Tmarie Morris is also thankful for the program. "I can actually look back now and say that I'm grateful," Morris said. "Had it not happened then, there was a possibility that Trevante could have continued down a path that was going to lead him nowhere." Trevante and Jamal will join their classmates on the graduation stage at North Mecklenburg and Waddell high schools. Jamal will enroll at Central Piedmont Community College and major in biotechnology. Trevante hasn't decided what he's going to do. He said a few small schools are recruiting him to play football, and he said he may start off at Hargrave Military Academy. But like Jamal, he says he's determined to finish his education with a college degree. There was some concern the jail high school program wouldn't survive county budget cuts. But the program did make next year's budget. It costs about $343,000.