Sunday, May 14, 2006
A Middle College of second chances
Elizabeth Strother
Recent columns
- For those who have too little
- Time to gather mountain views
- Our blind spot on roads
- Following the money trail
From the RoundTable blog
Dellamae Meadows is 19 years old, a dropout from Floyd County High School, who tells me first thing, "I've been fighting cancer. I don't have resources or money." Or even a home.
"Right now, I'm just with my friends from week to week," living in Radford or Christiansburg.
Yet she's in Middle College at New River Community College in Dublin. And she expects to be a substance abuse counselor in six years.
Amanda Quesenberry is 26, also a high school dropout -- "I think I was like 15 years old." At the time, she explains, "I didn't think I had any support, period. There was a family mess going on at that time."
Yet she has completed Middle College and has one semester to go at the community college to get an associate's degree. She thinks she'd like to work in a doctor's office, though she's certified in pharmacy technology. "I have my CNA certification" as a nursing assistant, she says, and "I just finished my American Red Cross certification" for child, infant and adult rescue.
But in the fall, "I'll probably finish my medical administrative support degree. ... I'm not for sure. There's so many different things out there, I keep getting sidetracked. But that's what I came here for, and hopefully that will be my career."
Both women are planning lives they might never have dreamed possible were it not for New River's Middle College, a two-year pilot program at five community colleges around the state that is in its second year.
"We're anticipating continued funding for the future -- we're hopeful of that," Jenny Leadbetter-Bolte, New River's program director, told me by phone the other week. "It's just tremendously successful.
"We have a lot of students who just wouldn't have been successful in college without it."
Bolte already was New River Community College's director of adult education when the pilot program came along. The college offers adult education -- preparation for General Educational Development high school equivalency tests, English for speakers of other languages, job training -- to residents of Floyd, Giles and Pulaski counties and Radford.
Now Bolte directs the Middle College as well. Unlike the adult education program, it is open to adults throughout the New River Valley. And, unlike adult education students, its participants are considered community college students.
Middle College is for 18- to 24-year-olds who lack a high school diploma but want to go to college. A hallmark of the program is flexibility, to match the needs of the variety of nontraditional students it is meant to attract.
"They earn several credentials," Bolte explained, "and a GED is one of them. But that is not as important as the whole college transition piece." Students get help figuring out what career to pursue, lining up financial aid and, well, just learning how to be good college students. That "piece" might last 12 weeks in a classroom setting, or less time -- or more -- spent with a tutor. "Some of them stay with us for a little while."
"For the most part," she said, "many are in the program because something occurred in their secondary experience" -- they got pregnant, had a health problem, simply lacked interest. "Some just have difficulty being successful in public education."
Meadows left school "in ninth or 10th grade" -- her recollection on that point is a little vague.
"When I dropped out I was already working at Kmart full time. I ended up pregnant, so I couldn't keep on working. This year, things were going downhill. I didn't have no high school education and no job, so I decided it was time to change something."
She said she had a miscarriage and a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She had an ovary removed, "and now they're mainly doing blood work. I'm not ready to do chemo right now, so I opted out of it."
Middle College is a real bright spot. When I talked to Meadows last week, she was waiting to hear whether she'd passed the GED.
"I love it," Meadows said. "The people are wonderful to work with. They really help you a lot. ...
"It's a really good program, especially for somebody who's struggling and doesn't have the money to go to college."
Quesenberry was struggling, working as a caretaker for the elderly, when her mother-in-law, Deborah, saw an article about the Middle College in the paper and prodded her to go back to school.
She had been meaning to, "but I kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off, pushing it off till next year." Now she expects to finish in the fall.
Getting this far has not been easy. Quesenberry got pregnant and had a son after enrolling. "After I had him, in six weeks, I was right back to school and back to work." Without the help of her mother, Julie Ward, "there's no way I could finish, period. 'Cause day care is really expensive." Her husband Orie Quesenberry III has helped with child care, too, and more.
"There were times I wanted to up and quit that Middle College program. He just wasn't having it."
And the college faculty and staff have been essential, too.
"I believe if I'd have went through any other GED program, I seriously doubt I would have even considered going to college," Quesenberry said. "Here you're exposed to different opportunities, and you have people here constantly reassuring you you can make something of yourself."
If that, dear reader, sounds like something you want to hear, Bolte has good news for you. "We have [Middle School] graduation on June 30. If somebody gets inspired, there's time to come in and complete the program in time to graduate and transition into college by the fall."
So get crackin'.
