MALDEN, Mass. -- Each week, NewsCenter 5 presents a high school senior who has taken the lessons of the classroom and applied them to life.

This week's A Plus student is Malden High School's Wan Yi Fang.

NewsCenter 5's Pam Cross reported that Fang is a leader at her school. She does the morning announcements and serves as class president. She's also a familiar voice in the classroom, where she takes five advanced placement courses.

"Wan Yi participates very frequently. She always has a very sunny disposition, and she shares her thoughts, her opinions and she shares them freely," Fang's Spanish teacher Courtney Simson said.

But it took Fang a long time to find her voice. Raised by her mother in a tough East Boston neighborhood, Fang said her childhood was a lonely one.

"My home was robbed, kids wrote racial comments on my door, and I was bullied almost every day. And I was really afraid to leave my house," said Fang.

To beat her loneliness, Fang said she starting hanging out with the wrong crowd. From there, she said, things only got worse.

"I was basically their little gopher. And so by fourth grade, I started skipping school with them. And I never listened to my mother. I went out at night and sometimes I never came home. And she would call the police to search for me. I stole her money a lot and her food stamps and gave them to my friends," Fang said.

Fang said she was so out of control, she had to be removed from her home and placed in foster care with relatives. Although it was a difficult time for the then-fifth grader, the move helped Fang see she could change her future. And change it she did.

"Watching the potential in those classmates, made me see potential in myself," Fang said. "I started to take my work seriously. I focused. I did my homework. I got involved in school activities. And so after that I was on the honor roll, and have been doing that ever since."

She started serving her community, too. She keeps herself busy planning school fundraisers, feeding the homeless at soup kitchens and volunteering with the Special Olympics.

"She's so vibrant and energetic and she's always is trying to do not just what's asked of her, but to go beyond that and to do something outstanding," Simson said.

If you know a special student who truly makes a difference in his or her classroom, please e-mail us your nomination. Please include your phone number.