GAS — The two women were at similar places in their lives, but a 25-year gap led them down different paths.
Class speaker Kayla Cash, 18, told how Crossroads Learning Center allowed her to continue her education as a young mother after she had dropped out of Iola High School.
Sheila Ivy, 43, said she’s waited 25 years to earn her high school degree. A failing grade in a government class denied Ivy her diploma years ago. In addition to the failing grade, Ivy was pregnant. A try at the class a year later, she was pregnant with her second child. To add to the tension, her husband, Robert, had accepted a job in Tennessee.
The move, the kids, being strangers in a strange state — all lead to Ivy letting go of the dream.
“I put my kids first,” she said of the next 25 years.
TUESDAY evening, 12 teenagers and three adults were recognized for their efforts, earning high school degrees through USD 257’s alternative school program. It’s the first year Crossroads has been expanded to allow adults to earn credits toward their degree.
Both women credited Crossroads’ accepting, yet disciplined, manner, in their success.
For Cash, attending Crossroads has meant she could be a student and employee at Kids Kingdom while raising her son, Thomas, 18 months.
“Ms. Gowdy has taught me there is a time for work and a time for play,” Cash said of English instructor Diane Gowdy. “She has helped me to become a very disciplined worker. I’ve learned that if you do your work right the first time, you don’t have to redo it.”
The program, frequently under attack when budgets are tight, “means so much to the students and gives a new meaning to ‘No Child Left Behind,’” Cash said.
IVY KEPT the fact that she did not have a high school diploma a secret from her four children until she enrolled in the program last fall.
When Crossroads extended the program to adults, Ivy realized it was the opportunity she had longed for.
But it wasn’t easy.
“Twenty-five years ago I did not have to have algebra nor did I have to know what the scientific method was,” she said of today’s requirements. “I had times where I wanted to give up. … But then I thought back to some of those talks with my children when I told them to study harder. … That they had to earn the grades if they wanted to play football.”
She took her own advice to heart, studied harder, and this time, succeeded.
For Ivy, it means she can attend her 25-year high school reunion in July as a bona fide graduate.
“They always counted me in,” she said of her former classmates. “But this time, it’ll feel different.”
