NEVER TOO LATE TO GRADUATE
New program available via the
county library boosts the high school completion rate
VC Reporter: 3.21.2018 by Michael Sullivan
Tammy Marquez, 52, of Oxnard, a single mother of
four, has seemed to have a bit of good luck most of her life, at least when it
came to working without a high school diploma. Though she dropped out of high
school her junior year at Chatsworth High School after getting pregnant, she
was able to manage pretty well the next 30-plus years of her life. It wasn’t
until her position doing wine club sales, where she worked for six years, was
no longer available and she didn’t get one particular job because she lacked a
high school diploma, that she decided it was time to tie up that loose end. She
did so by enrolling in Ventura County Library’s Career Online High School.
“I signed up to get a GED but it was difficult to
get to class,” Marquez said. “I heard about this online and jumped on it.”
Marquez, along with five others from around the
county in caps and gowns, accepted her high school diploma in the Topping Room
of the E.P. Foster Library on Tuesday, March 20, the first graduates of the
program. The online high school, offered by Ventura County Library’s READ Adult Literacy Program
in partnership with Gale, a Cengage Learning company, has been around for about
two years and the program takes about 18 months to complete. Marquez plans to
pursue an associate’s degree and work toward providing child care for people
with special needs, drawing from personal experience of caring for her
20-year-old son who has Down’s syndrome.
For 15 years, Carol Chapman has been the
coordinator of the READ Adult Literacy Program/ Community Engagement. When the California State Library offered an
initiative to implement the online high school program, whereby the
county library was able to buy and receive matching scholarships for students
wanting to enroll, Chapman jumped on it. The library accumulated 35
scholarships, valued at $1,100 each; and currently there 29 students enrolled,
six of whom just gradated. READ MORE >>
No comments:
Post a Comment