OnnaLee Terraza, a senior at San Miguel High School, rehearses for graduation in the school's new gym. This year is the school's first graduating class; all have been accepted to college.

Jill Torrance / Arizona Daily Star

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OnnaLee Terraza knows how to identify organisms through a DNA sample.

The 18-year-old developed that skill while watching scientists and robots trace human roots back thousands of years for National Geographic's Genographic Project.

Terraza learned while working at the Human Origins Genomics Laboratory at the University of Arizona, through a work-study program at San Miguel High School.

All 220 students at the school work one day out of the school week at different local companies that compensate them by paying two-thirds of their high school tuition.

President Bush praised this school model, known as Cristo Rey, in a recent speech because it helps make private education accessible to low-income families.

The efforts are coming full circle at San Miguel, 6601 S. San Fernando Road. On Saturday, its first class of seniors, 37 students, will graduate.

Terraza is part of that graduating class at a school that started in the vacant rooms of a church four years ago.

Through her current internship at the lab and at a hospital where she was previously assigned, Terraza said she got to see what the working world is all about.

"They've taught me a lot about dealing with people, that not everyone's nice, and that not everyone's mean. You just have to learn not to take it personally," she said.

Terraza noted that she also learned valuable lessons outside of the corporate internship program.

"All the college stuff that they talk about, it helps us grow up," she said. "It helps us become more responsible and have a different perspective of the world, that it's not just all going to be out there for us. We have to look for it and work hard."

Terraza has been at San Miguel since it started four years ago with 60 students, in four non-air-conditioned rooms that were available at St. Monica's Catholic Church, near where the school now stands.

"This whole area sat as a vacant, dusty lot. And it was full of trash, derelict washing machines and mattresses," said Sherie Steele, the school's director of institutional advancement. The neighbors were happy when things started shaping up with the construction of the school, she added.

Nowadays, the school has two buildings, and two more are about to be completed. The new buildings promise more classroom space and a school gym. The seniors got to enter the gym for the first time during their graduation rehearsal.

Even though the students won't get to roam the halls of the new school, they will leave a high standard for generations to come, said Elizabeth Goettl, president of San Miguel.

All the students have been accepted to colleges and universities. They've received 119 acceptance letters from 34 colleges across the country. And the scholarship money they have received totals almost $ 3.6 million. That's a big achievement for students who come from families of limited resources, Steele said.

For some, the outcome has come only after a great deal of work. Many of the students who enroll at San Miguel start classes with an academic deficit.

As for Terraza, she has decided to go to Pima Community College for the first two years because it's economically convenient. And even though she's had a taste of the complicated world of science, she's thinking about becoming an interpreter to take advantage of being bilingual.