Main story: Determined teacher helps keeps students on Path to success

Teacher Jan Link has a mantra: Anyone can make it, given the right help after the school day ends. These are a few of the many students she helped.

• Juan Guitron: Getting down to work

• Breeanna Martin: Figuring things out

• Taylor Murgallis: From slacker to honor roll

LYNNWOOD — He seemed like a long shot.

There were times early in elementary school when his mom would have to chase him around the block to get him in the car.

In the school parking lot, she’d enlist the principal to coax him out.

By third grade, if he even went to school, Taylor Murgallis would often fall asleep in the classroom.

Absences piled up, as did his apathy toward school.

The thing was, Taylor was plenty smart.

Kim Murgallis had her hands full. There was rent to pay and five other children.

Teachers worried about her son. One predicted that Taylor could drop out by the eighth grade if he didn’t change his ways. Kim Murgallis appreciated the teacher’s honesty and feared he might be right.

When his sixth-grade teacher recommended Taylor for Jan Link’s startup “Path to College” program, it was as though someone had thrown a life ring into choppy waters. Kim Murgallis seized it and clung to her wayward boy.

Beginning in seventh grade at Alderwood Middle School, Link pushed Taylor — and his parents. She preached hard work and perseverance, a message that slowly sunk in.

“She gave him skills, not only in school, but in how to take care of himself,” Kim Murgallis said.

“Jan helped teach me how to learn,” Taylor said.

Over time, Taylor said he was “transmogrified” from slacker to honor-roll student.

He provided solace to his parents when they needed it most. An older son had dropped out of school. In 2011, he was hit by a car and killed along a stretch of highway in California. In the years that followed, Taylor tried to console his parents and focused on school.

In September, Kim Murgallis called Link. They talked about Taylor, as they had so many times over the years. On this day, Murgallis was crying. They were tears of joy. She’d just dropped Taylor off at the University of Washington Bothell where he’s planning to major in business and computer science.

Kim Murgallis wanted to share the moment, and credit, with the taskmaster she’d come to consider a friend.

“I knew this was her,” she said. “It was her helping me.”

Taylor Murgallis made the Dean’s List in his first quarter of college.