OCTOBER 15, 2009 ISSUE
GED Program for High School Dropouts Finds Success
Nancee Pond, a GED teacher of the Watauga Campus of Caldwell Community College, holds Adela Barcenas during the Watauga Literacy Association meeting at Watauga County Public Library last Saturday, October 3, which honored Pond for her literacy work. Adela is the two-year-old daughter of Nichole Barcenas of Boone, one of 21 participants since 2007 in an off-campus GED program for high school dropouts that Pond teaches. Caldwell Community College and the Watauga Children’s Council created the program with assistance from the Watauga Literacy Association specifically to enable a growing number of teen mothers who want to continue their education and get their GED.
An original grant application that sparked off the project was never funded, but the three organizations and supporters have still managed to overcome the main obstacles that teen moms face in continuing their education after giving birth—transportation and qualified daycare—by providing both. The college also provides textbooks and supplies, while the Children’s Council lends laptops to the program.
With these resources, student can attend the classes, which started out at the Children’s Playhouse one morning a week and now take place three times a week in the Family Resource Center behind Boone Drug-Deerfield. One student graduated with her GED the first year. This year, seven graduated, including Adela’s mom. The classes are free and some male dropouts also attend with the mother of their child. Twenty children have already been cared for while the mothers have resumed their schooling. Photo by Bernadette Cahill
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