Inside the classroom at 360 Kids, a Richmond Hill youth homeless shelter, students Kamisha Dianocky and Frank Grening-Morash are putting the final touches on their high school diplomas.

Less than a year after launching iGrads, a high school program designed for at-risk homeless youth, 360 Kids’s first full class will graduate on June 28.

Grening-Morash, 23, who is living on the street for the sixth time, is in the process of finishing the final two credits of his diploma.

“I’ve been looking forward to graduating for over five years now,” he said, laughing. “I don’t really have means to navigate away from it (homelessness) but this school’s going to help me so that I don’t go back there, because I’m looking at a job and not risking being on the streets again.”

Dianocky, 22, travels an hour and a half to 360 Kids from Markham when she’s not working at a camera store. She has completed 10 credits since September — something she never thought possible, though her teacher, Sarah Strachan, always believed in her.

“She was working really, really hard on school work and about a month ago we were looking and thinking, ‘You know what, I think you might be able to graduate if you just put in a little bit more effort, I think that this could really happen,’ ” Strachan said, smiling at Dianocky from across the classroom. “That was it for Kamisha and she just said, ‘You know what, I want to do this,’ and now she’s going to be graduating.”

If all goes well, Strachan hopes there will be 11 graduates crossing the stage at the Dr. Bette Stephenson Centre for Learning on Wednesday.

The program has welcomed nearly 60 students since September, providing homeless youth with a commitment-free, predominantly online environment, one that offers credits for life experience.

“I just got agitated sitting on my (butt) so I just said, ‘Let’s try something new,’ and I’ve grown to love this program,” said Grening-Morash, who battles anxiety and claustrophobia. “Almost anyone can do it. It was more relief of anxiety because it’s like, ‘OK, it’s not a structured building.’ It’s teaching, learning, that’s all it is: no strings attached, no citations. It’s literally go at your own pace.”

Dianocky credits the program’s transitional team for helping her find a job and her apartment in Markham so that she could focus on school after transitioning from children’s aid to 360 Kids.

“I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to sleep every day,” she said.

Dianocky beams when she talks about graduating. Next year, she’s going to take some business courses at Seneca College — a dream of hers.

Funded by the Town of Richmond Hill and the Region of York, the shelter created the program together with the York Region District School Board to give street kids a second chance.

“It’s not because they aren’t smart or they aren’t motivated, it’s the fact that their housing is so unstable,” Strachan said. “If you don’t know where you’re going to live, are you really going to sit down and do an assignment? Absolutely not. That’s not a priority. Your priority is what you’re going to eat and where you’re going to sleep.”

Strachan says students such as Grening-Morash can fall into lulls where they aren’t actively engaged in taking their classes. At 360 Kids, that’s OK.

“I just let him know, ‘I’m here for you and when you’re ready, you can come.’ ”

Grening-Morash speaks openly about struggling to find dry places to sleep and staying up until 4 a.m. because he’s afraid of being robbed.

“The last week has been horrible,” he said, shaking his head.

He found comfort in a classroom he once struggled in.

“A lot of students will come here every day because there’s still part of them that does really like it, that does miss it,” Strachan added. “If you want to have stable housing, then you need a stable job, and one of the stepping stones is education.”

Strachan tells her students that getting a credit is a “really, really big accomplishment,” even if they aren’t graduating.

“The youth who are coming through these doors have really incredible life stories. You can’t help but feel what they’re going through and you invest in them emotionally,” she said. “It’s a journey that you’re taking with them. I’m really excited to see them graduate.”

When iGrads started, Strachan expected to be sitting in the classroom by herself for the first couple of months.

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“It is way more successful than we thought it would be, especially in the first year,” she said. “It’s like a rite of passage graduating from high school and it builds up some confidence and gives them a sense of accomplishment that they’ve completed that stage of their life and then they’re ready to move on to the next one.”

In a few weeks, that next step will see Grening-Morash move into a housing program with the help of 360 Kids.

But first he’s got a graduation ceremony to attend.

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