A GED safety net for high school dropouts

“The relationships that we develop and nurture with students are of utmost importance because they will not care about what we know until they know that we care,” says Jason Marshall, the director of GED Plus.

Kathiel Matos-Curry attended GED Plus more than six years ago after dropping out of high school in her freshman year. Just hearing from her GED teacher that she would pass the exam in two months inspired her. She passed, and today she is our office manager. She motivates students to focus on their education. “If I can do it, so can they,” she says.

And yet, I can also see how much further a program like ours still needs to go. We graduate 50 percent of our students – the same as the national average for GED programs, which serve 700,000 students each year.

You could argue our graduation rate is a decent showing, considering the challenges our students face. We’re often pointed to as a “success story” in Boston education. But I would argue for even more safety-net assistance – mental health and social services, especially for students who experience trauma, homelessness, and gang-related problems.

A young man in my class is trying to get over the death of his older brother and best friend who were shot and killed a year apart from each other. Yes, he’s pursuing his education, but he also drinks to numb the hurt. He needs help from an on-site counselor, but we have only one full-time counselor to assist 64 students.

Since September, when I started teaching, three women have entered my class at least eight months pregnant. They gave birth before they finished their GED preparation. They are welcome to come back to the program – which is free – but they can’t afford child care.

The majority of our graduates go on to job training programs or community college. I take pride in that. But sometimes their futures aren’t so bright. Last week, one of my students was forced to drop out of our program because street rivals threatened him every day on his way to school. He still wanted to earn his GED so he could become a chef to obtain a better life for his daughter. But he was afraid.

I have learned that I cannot play superman and save everyone. But at least I can prepare students who stay with the program for their GED, and assure them that if anyone has their best interest at heart, I do.

Nakia Hill is a journalism graduate student at Emerson College in Boston and an intern on the Commentary desk at The Christian Science Monitor.

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