He said he was abused by a relative as a child and had a father who was in jail for much of his young life - both fueling his anger.

But after nearly a year of counseling to deal with that anger, Rosa was ready to think about school again, and he heeded the words of his grandmother: Be the first person in your family to graduate from high school.

For the last year, he's been enrolled at Fairhill Community High School, a special school for older students, and has found its small, family-like atmosphere to be exactly what he needed.

Programs such as the one at Fairhill are being expanded as part of Project U-Turn, a citywide consortium aimed at lowering the city's dropout rate, which a study last year put at crisis levels. Allowing more students to go to schools like Fairhill is one of the solutions the group has come up with in the last year to help students like Rosa stay in school.

"Everyone there knows your name. It feels like you're going to school with your family, because everyone there cares for you," said Rosa, of Kensington. "Even the janitors, they know your name."

Rosa, now 18 and in his second year at Fairhill, could have been part of the daunting dropout statistics, but instead he plans to become a role model for his younger siblings and peers.

"I nearly became a statistic, but look at me now," Rosa, clad in a pressed shirt and a tie, said at yesterday's news conference, updating the first-year results of Project U-Turn. "There's a solution other than dropping out."

Throughout his school career, Rosa's school performance careered from honor roll to failure.

There was one day when he was suspended for failing to follow the middle school principal's order not to eat in class and was honored with a first-place plaque for an essay he wrote as part of a college readiness program.

Rosa said he was 13 when he told his mother and grandmother he had been abused by a relative. Three years later, he confessed his inability to control his anger to his grandmother. She told him he needed therapy, and he entered a program for 11 months. At the time, he was 16 and in ninth grade.

He also joined the United Latin American Pentecostal Church, where he prays and serves as a soloist.

But upon leaving the program, he learned that he would have to go to school until he was 21 to earn his diploma. He couldn't see himself staying that long. A school district administrator then suggested Fairhill, which is run for the school district by the nonprofit International Education and Community Initiative.

"I spoke to my grandmom. She said, 'Don't you remember you promised one day you were going to be the first in the family to graduate?' . . . I did promise her that, and I also promised myself that."

Rosa has made the honor roll at the 225-student Fairhill and has become a leader, said principal Marcus A. Delgado. As part of a summer program, he interviewed Mayor-elect Michael Nutter about the dropout crisis.

"He's always willing to go the extra mile to help out around the school," Delgado said. "He wants to do a lot with his life, and he needed a smaller environment like Fairhill to make it happen."

Rosa said he wanted to become a sociologist and help people like him.

"Now, I think about the future," he told the crowd gathered at school district headquarters. "And in the year 2017, I will be a successful sociologist, writing my first book about the end of the dropout crisis."

The audience erupted in applause.