Metro High student persists over obstacles, earns diploma

CEDAR RAPIDS — It wasn’t until Oliviah Partee began thinking seriously about life after high school that she was motivated to earn her diploma.

Partee, 18, struggled to learn online during her freshman year at Kennedy High School in the fall of 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

“It was hard, and I wasn’t doing my work. I’m a visual, hands-on learner. I wasn’t learning anything online,” she said.

Partee said she also struggled to find a social group as a Black girl at Kennedy High. Although her family was living in Kennedy’s attendance boundary, most of her friends — who she met as a student at Wilson Middle School — were within the Jefferson High School attendance boundary instead.

So Partee transferred to Jefferson High her sophomore year. But already behind in earning credits toward graduation, she was told toward the end of that year that she needed to go to Metro High School, the alternative high school in the Cedar Rapids Community School District.

Although Partee wanted to drop out when she learned she had to transfer to Metro, her mom encouraged her to at least attend the school’s new student orientation.

“It reeled me in,” Partee said.

At Metro, Partee got back on track. She found classes she loved like Forensics — an alternative choice to Biology — where students study unsolved crimes and write an essay on who they think committed them and why.

Although Partee doesn’t particularly enjoy math, she also said taking math at Metro was one of her favorite classes because of the teacher.

“It opened my eyes because the teachers here really actually do want to help you succeed. They sit there and help you until you get it,” she said.

Partee was one of 80 students to graduate this year from Metro High School. She said she did it for herself.

She also was inspired to stay in school and earn her high school diploma by her older sister, Star Partee, 27, who now lives in Phoenix. Star has always valued education, Partee said. She graduated from Kennedy High and got two bachelor’s degrees from Iowa State University in psychology and criminal justice. She’s finishing her master’s degree at Grand Canyon University in Arizona in industrial organizational psychology.

When Star saw her sister struggling in high school, Star said she wasn’t pushing college. “That was way beyond where we were at the time. My focus was on a high school diploma (or a GED. equivalent). You’re going to be 18 and wonder what you did during that time,” Star said.

Star worries that Partee will feel like she’s in her sister’s shadow, telling her that “we are not comparable. You have completely blown it out of the water. You are making your own way.”

Partee received five scholarships to Hawkeye Community College, where she plans to study digital mass media before transferring to a four-year university — possibly an historically Black college or university, she said.

Partee hopes to open her own podcasting studio someday.

Star calls Oliviah her “nugget.” After four younger brothers, she always wanted a sister, Star said.

“She has been a saving grace to me,” Star said of Oliviah. “I wanted her for so long. When she came into our lives, I was absolutely obsessed with her.”

“I could not be more proud of her. She is a great person, a great friend and a great daughter,” Star said.

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