Digital subscriptions provided by the City of Gulfport THE GABBER.COM No. 2786
November 10, 2022 - November 16, 2022
Gibbs Grad Gets Head Start on College Ja’tanaisha Thompson is a freshman at the University of Florida, albeit not a typical freshman. For starters, she just turned 17. Thompson was still 16 when she graduated from Gibbs High School last May and arrived on the UF campus in Gainesville a month later. She made the move early thanks to her own smarts and a local program that identifies and helps exceptional students navigate high school and blaze a trail for college. She started her accelerated academic path while a student at John Hopkins Middle School, which offered certain high school courses for students in seventh and eighth grade. She took advantage of those and started her actual high school years ahead of the game. “I did start high school on time as a freshman,” she said. “But I had the amount of credits of a typical sophomore.” After her ninth-grade year was completed and she was still a year ahead, Thompson decided to ramp it up even more. In addition to the eight classes she took at Gibbs last year, she signed up for five classes through Florida Virtual School and Grad continued on page 7
DINE-IN •
JA’TANAISHA THOMPSON
By Monroe Roark
Ja’tanaisha Thompson and her grandmother at last spring’s Gibbs High School graduation.
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