Sandra Lewis didn’t think about it when the man and his 8-year-old daughter stepped into the intro to a computer science course.
After all, the parents who worked at Crafton Hills College in Yukaipa were nothing new.
“I thought, ‘Here’s the father – the student – and his daughter’,” the veteran assistant professor said. “I thought he needed a babysitter.”
Imagine her surprise when it turns out she had it backwards.
Just before class began, Rafael Perales left. I started my second semester of university, leaving my daughter Alisa behind.
“It was the first time I’ve had a very young student,” said Lewis, who taught Alisa in the second semester and served as programming coach. “She turns out to be a very incredible student who brought her focus and creativity that was as prominent as her age.”
Far from being prominent because of her youth, Alisa has proven to be an outstanding student. Over two and a half years in college, she posted a 3.8 GPA.
She currently graduates on Friday with multiple associate degrees in science and mathematics. She is the youngest alumni in the school and the youngest alumni in California history.
Next is the university. She has already been accepted to several University of California campuses, but has yet to decide where she is heading this fall. Ultimately, Tween Dynamo dreams of operating artificial intelligence with aerospace giant SpaceX.
“It’s a really exciting time to graduate and prepare for my future,” Alisa said.
Alisa Perales, 11, of San Bernardino, is set to make college history at Crafton Hills when she graduates with her second degree this week.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The path to the graduation phase began 10 years ago when Perales realized his daughter’s natural academic talent.
“I wanted to see what my kids could do with full-time attention and learning,” Perales said. “It wasn’t an easy choice, but she was well worth it.”
Perales, a trade civil lawyer who divorced and raised his daughter alone, stopped his burgeoning practice and became Alisa’s instructor.
The duo treated learning like a profession, studying eight hours a day, six days a week.
“I worked so hard from the beginning to the present,” Alisa said. “I felt natural in my work and in my learning, but it was still a lot of hard work.”
By her second birthday – when most children are expected to recognize basic shapes and colors and have conversations in short 2-4 word sentences – Alisa has already mastered the alphabet and can count in hundreds.
At age 2, she was able to read it herself. By 3, she had written with high school accuracy, conquered the multiplication table and understood the division, her father said.
“I had to buy a larger, thicker pencil that she could hold in her hand to do the job,” he said.
Alisa moved to a long division by the time she was 5 by the age of four to basic algebra.
Perales said he felt that he avoided more established public and charter schools and didn’t provide the rigours he could. He couldn’t afford private schools or private tutors, balked in a homeschooling format and curriculum for his daughter, and felt he knew the kids the most.
He received education training from something called “YouTube University.” This is a busy Beaver Language Skills video, mixing it with do-it-yourself tutorials and educational entertainment, including old-fashioned classics such as flash cards and coloring books.
“I wanted to do something quickly for my daughter, so I adjusted my learning just for her,” Perales said.
Crafton Hills College’s Alisa Perales final GPA is nearly 4.0. At 11am, she will become the youngest graduate in university history.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Perales said the transition from earner to educator has resulted in a massive economic hit of “scraping off for years.” The father and daughter engaged in several real estate investments that allowed them to “pay the bills.”
But the work paid off. By 8, Alisa had completed all the state-mandated coursework to graduate from high school with her diploma.
“She obviously had some innate sparks that drove her to be truly excellent, but she spent her time,” Perales said.
But it wasn’t all a tough job. Between the ages of four and eight, Perales reduced his bag. Classroom times have been reduced five days a week.
Hoping to reward her daughter, Perares purchased a season pass for Disneyland and took Alisa to the happiest place on the planet every weekend.
There she spotted chicken bids, turkey legs and nosing on Mickey Mouse cookies.
The scientific part of Alisa’s mind was wondering how many cast members were needed to manipulate her favorite vehicle, Star Wars: The Rise of Resistance, but the rest enjoyed drops, dark turns, and ultimately a successful escape.
However, as graduation day approached, her path to this point also sparked a backlash.
Crafton Hills College issued a statement on April 16th promoting Alisa’s achievements. However, some online commentators pushed back after the news was picked up by media outlets.
For Perares, criticism from strangers was just as surprising as it was off-bass.
“She meets crowds of kids, makes new friends, and everyone is having an instant and great time,” he said. “Everything people were afraid of her not being bothering or sociable was completely wrong.”
Alisa said she plays soccer with a friend in the San Bernardino neighborhood.
She will also connect with her peers on the online video game platform Roblox.
Making friends is challenging for children and their parents, regardless of the situation.
Last year, CS Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan released a poll that sampled parents of children aged 6 to 12 years old.
One in five parents surveyed said their children either don’t have friends or they’re not enough. In the same poll, 21% of parents said embarrassment and social awkwardness hindered their child’s ability to make friends.
Alisa says on her side, “Introducing herself to kids of her age, starting to talk, and asking when she can play. That’s how I made new friends.”
Alisa’s first year at Crafton Hills was a mixture of nerves and excitement.
“It was good to see new people from day one,” she said. “It was all new, but I was getting more and more comfortable there in the semester after that.”
Perales purchased a pair of transceivers so that she could communicate with her daughter during breaks and class.
As the then 8-year-old student began her college career, he sat outside her class in person. After his first year he waited for the hall, eventually waiting outside the building, in the school’s courtyard and outside the campus.
According to Perares, Alisa studied 35 hours a week in college, independent of coursework. During her registration, she was also a contributor to the school’s programming team and computer science instructor Lewis helped the coach.
The 15-person team competed in the Southern California International College Programming Contest held at Riverside City College in November.
Students competed for 12 hours to solve a set of programming problems for a team of three. Lewis said Alisa was the youngest participant there.
“She worked with her older students with very confident work, but no one was close to her age,” Lewis said. “It was very inspiring to see her issues being under pressure and see how her teammates look to her for ideas.”
Not satisfied with just accelerating her high school and college career, Alisa also tried to win a jump start with another activity reserved for people older than her: Votes.
In April 2023, she sued California and the federal government, claiming that the 26th Amendment (reducing the national voting age from 21 to 18) constituted age discrimination. Her father served as a lawyer.
Alisa said she was inspired by her attempting to revise during her political science class, a lonely university course in which she had not received an “A.”
She argued that she should be allowed to participate in democracy, and that her high school education and admission to the Clafton Hills College Honorary Institute proved she was capable of votes.
The US Central District Court judge did not waver and dismissed the case in January 2024.
Pamela S. Karlan, co-director of Stanford University’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, agreed that the voting age law discriminates based on age.
However, she said in an email to the Times that the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled that the government could do so as long as “the age classification in question is reasonably related to the interests of the legitimate state.”
“The law stands as long as there is a basis for treating people differently based on their age,” she said.
Perales said he and his daughter would not appeal the decision due to exorbitant costs.
“I may not be a person who changes the law, but someone else might pick up this and try,” Alisa said.
Anyway, you can wait. She holds a hat and gown to prepare.
