A Largo High School senior is graduating with an outstanding achievement.
Phillip Vega has been awarded the school's Turnaround Student for 2015. Vega boosted his grade point average from a 1.1 his freshman year to a 3.9 GPA by his senior year. He made the dramatic turnaround after attending a summer medical program and meeting high achieving students from other schools.
"I got to be around kids who were doing the opposite of what I was doing, they were excelling really, they were doing a lot in school," Vega said. "A lot of them had high GPAs, were super involved in clubs, had high test scores. I was like 'oh wow, I want to be like that, I want to be like these kids.'"
To get the 3.9 GPA, Vega retook several classes while enrolling in AP courses.
"When he made the decision, he no longer got anything less than an A," said Vega's guidance counselor Courtney Ward.
After turning his grades around, Vega and a friend started a club to help steer other students.
Vega graduates next week. This summer, he'll start college at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers.