Schools
'I Never Thought This Day Would Come'
Brittany Tarzia, the A-school's 'flagship for honor and integrity,' heads off to begin her vet tech studies in the fall.
On the morning leading up to her graduation from Ridgefield's Alternative High School, senior Brittany Tarzia felt like the impending transition to high school graduate was surreal.
"I never thought this day would come," Tarzia, 18, said.
Her earlier teenage years, she said, were filled with the wrong people, a "broken home," drugs and alcohol. She was expelled from Westhill High School, went to rehab and spent a year and two months in a residential facility.
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Then, in late March 2007, she was discharged, and she moved in with her father in Ridgefield, enrolling at Ridgefield High.
"I wasn't involved with drugs and alcohol anymore," Tarzia said. "I had sobered up, but my attitude was still very poor."
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She was suspended for fighting a couple months after matriculating. It was then that Tarzia spoke with RHS social worker Barbara George about RAHS.
"She brought me an application and I filled it out extremely fast," Tarzia said, recalling her eagerness to surround herself with "kids who were as dedicated to being sober as I was."
"I decided that I didn't want to go through school as being the bad kid," she added. "I didn't want to be miserable."
At RAHS, Tarzia found the structured atmosphere she needed, calling current director Denise Brown and just-retired director Joan Voss "mothers" and everyone else at the school the "backbone" in her life.
And the regard was reciprocal—during the graduation ceremony, Brown called Tarzia the school's "flagship for honor and integrity."
"Her maturity has skyrocketed," agreed Rita De Bruyne, Tarzia's therapist, "not only scholastically, but also mentally and emotionally. She's a stellar young woman."
Tarzia was accepted to Mercy College, her top choice, in Dobbs Ferry, NY. She plans to be a veterinary technician.
"If I didn't have this program over these past three years, I would not be graduating today," Tarzia said Tuesday morning. "I would not be going to my first choice college. I wouldn't have scholarships. I wouldn't be going anywhere with my life. Some people say it's a cliche, but this program saved my life."
