EL CENTRO — A 2025 Central Union High School graduate was not the typical high school student that excelled immediately.

Joel Solorzano struggled his freshman year with the subject of English which he failed and biology, where he received the letter grade of a D. Solorzano attended summer school as a junior to pass these courses. He was born and attended school in Mexico until the fifth grade in Mexicali before he and his family moved to El Centro.

It was not easy for Solorzano, as he only spoke Spanish back then, and when asked if that was the reason for him struggling his freshman year in high school, he said it was not.

“I had known English for a couple of years while adapting to a new school,” he said. “It was probably laziness my freshman year.”

In high school he played soccer for

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