9/13/2009
By ERIN MATHEWS/Salina Journal
One grew up in Thailand and lacked the educational opportunity available to her now.

Another moved out of her parents' house at age 16 and was more focused on getting married and becoming a mother than earning her high school diploma.

A third never found acceptance because her family moved a lot, and she was teased for being the new kid and for being overweight.

A fourth faced mental health issues but decided to turn his life around after spending time in prison.

The reasons these adults didn't graduate from high school as teenagers are as different as the people themselves. But when they decided it was time to continue their education, they all came to the same place.

The Smoky Hill Education Service Center, which operates a learning center at 830 S. Ninth, offers adult students an opportunity to study online and earn an actual high school diploma, no matter how many years ago the rest of their classmates walked across the stage.

"We look at their transcript and what they've already accomplished and mold our program to meet their needs," said Cindy Harlan, coordinator of learning centers. "We try to emphasize what they've already accomplished and go from there."

The center provides services for adult students living in 65 member school districts from western Kansas to the Nebraska border, with computer learning centers like the one in Salina also available in Enterprise, Smith Center, Belleville and Concordia. Two traveling teachers meet with students in other area towns on a regular basis. Education programs also are conducted in the Saline County Jail and juvenile detention center.

There's no age limit

"There's no age limit on getting a high school diploma in the state of Kansas," said Larry Patrick, interim director of the service center. There's also no deadline for enrollment or completion of diploma requirements, which are the same as any high school graduate would have. Each student sets his or her own pace and pays an annual fee of $25.

"Schools do everything they can to keep kids from dropping out, but the reality is they do," he said. "We're here to give them an opportunity to prove to themselves that they can graduate."

The only two requirements to enroll in Smoky Hill's online coursework is that you don't have a diploma and you are willing to work toward earning one, Patrick said.

"These are good, good people," Patrick said. "Life happens, and it kept them from getting their diploma in what the rest of us would consider a normal time frame."

To attain that dream of becoming a high school graduate later in life, Patrick said, students must be ready to work and self-motivated. They must attain an 80 percent or higher to pass their coursework.

"We are not an easy way out," he said. "We want the adults who come to us to be very proud of the diplomas they earn."

Harlan said working at the center has been the most rewarding thing she's ever done because of the wonderful success stories she gets to help students create.

"We're kind of like the second chance for students," she said. "We give them the foundation, and they build on it."

Love to study, learn

Amon Zachary, 64, flipped through her neatly lettered, color coded notebook as she recently studied a vocabulary question on her computer screen.

The native of Thailand, who moved to Salina 18 years ago, is one of 98 students currently enrolled in the center's programs in Salina. She said her educational needs were not fulfilled in her home country.

"I so love to study and learn more," she said. "I didn't have the opportunity in my country like I have here. This is very challenging. The computer teaches me a lot."

Zachary, who works at Tony's as an assembly line attendant, said she tries to come to the center three or four days a week.

'I decided to do it'

For Salinan Melissa Turner, a day when her own daughter didn't want to go to school made her realize that she did.

"There was one day in particular that my daughter refused to go to school," she said. "I thought, 'How can I make my child go if I didn't go myself?' So, I dove in and decided to do it."

Turner, 29, said "life got in the way" of her completing high school as a teen.

"I don't believe at 16 I really had the determination to finish it that I had later," she said.

She dropped out in her junior year to get married and soon became a mother. In 2008, her children, ages 10 and 6, became the motivation she needed to complete her own education.

"I didn't feel I could push my two to finish if I wasn't a good role model for them," she said.

While caring for her own children and as many as 10 others at her child care, Turner squeezed in study time during naps, evenings and early mornings before the kids woke. She completed the requirements for her diploma in eight months.

And she didn't stop there.

"Within a month of graduating from high school, I was signed up for college and by December I was already attending," she said.

Turner has now completed her first year of online courses through the University of Phoenix with a 3.85 grade point average.

She is working toward a psychology degree and hopes to work with children from troubled homes. She plans to earn her doctorate. Her husband, who serves in the Army, plans to enroll in college to pursue an architecture degree when he returns from Iraq next year, she said.

"There's one thing I've figured out -- it can't be done without goals," Turner said. "Our goals are definitely there."

Turner said she liked being able to work on her courses at home and to have the availability of one-on-one help from a teacher at the center when she needed it.

"It made a big difference to me," she said. "That's why I push so hard for others to finish."

Heavy, wrong clothes

Kathryn Bolsinger, 33, said being older and more mature has also made her better prepared to study. Bolsinger, a customer service representative for Asurion, began working toward becoming an official high school graduate in 2004. She hopes to complete requirements for her diploma this year, and then she plans to move on to online college.

"I'm doing this for me," Bolsinger said. "I'm doing this so I can actually learn the stuff that I didn't and brush up on the stuff that I did. I want to be here."

Bolsinger said her family moved several times while she was growing up. Transferring schools caused her to miss out on some parts of her mathematics essentials so that she struggled with math, she said.

"I was always afraid of being wrong," she said. "I didn't want to be called on."

She said she was teased for being the new kid, being heavy, and not having stylish clothes, and although she had some amazing teachers, few were able to break through the barriers she built around herself, she said.

"I closed myself off and really didn't care about school any more," she said. "I wish I could actually reverse time and go back there knowing what I know now and having the confidence that if they tease, it doesn't matter or at least understand why they tease -- where that comes from."

She left high school and was home-schooled for 11th and 12th grades, earning a diploma through a church. However, she lost the only copy of the diploma, which was not recognized as official by the state, she said.

In 1997, she moved to California and became a nanny for three children. She stayed with the family for five years before returning to Salina.

"I wanted to teach them a love of reading, and I worked with the little ones on kindergarten workbooks before they started school," she said. "I wished I had had that motivation myself when I was in school."

With the adult education program, Bolsinger has found the motivation she lacked when she was younger. She is ready to learn and enjoys working at her own pace.

"Here they make sure I understand everything," she said. "My friends don't realize how much I like it. If I could be a professional student, I would."

Very inspirational

For Salinan Semaj Matthews, graduating from high school was part of a new start to life. The 29-year-old man, who dropped out his junior year, walked across the stage with other Central High School graduates at commencement in May to receive his diploma.

"It was very inspirational," he said. "I liked it a lot. It was very encouraging to me."

Harlan said students who complete their diploma requirements in time, are given the option of participating in their high school's graduation ceremony. She said not many do, but for those who turn the tassel, it is an unforgettable occasion.

Last year a young Asian student who came daily to work at the center finished requirements two days before South's graduation, she said. School officials were able to get her a cap and gown, and she marched across the stage with South graduates.

"When she got done, she said they don't do anything like this in China," she said. "For her, it was such a huge celebration. It was a good day. We had no idea we could squeeze her in. Now I've heard she's pursuing her nursing degree."

Should be very proud

Matthews, whose framed diploma now hangs in the living room at his parents' house, had been working toward earning his degree in 2004 when he was convicted of aggravated robbery and was sent to prison for 53 months. He served his sentence in correctional facilities in Hutchinson and El Dorado.

"I was on medications and doing drugs, and I woke up and decided to rob a bank," he said. "I don't know why."

Matthews, who was unarmed, gave a teller at Bennington State Bank a note demanding money and was caught the same day. The money he took was recovered.

Matthews said while in prison, he was able to quit taking a lot of the medication he had been on because the mental disorders he had been diagnosed with became less of a problem. He was no longer hearing voices by the time his incarceration ended on Sept. 8, 2008, he said.

"It was one of the best feelings in the world to get out," he said.

He lacked eight credit hours of completing his diploma, and Matthews immediately set about earning those, often spending four hours a day at the center until his requirements were complete.

"I'm very thankful I went back to school," he said. "I didn't think I'd be able to do it."

Patrick said students at the center have a variety of different past experiences.

"Semaj should be very, very proud of what he did," Patrick said. "He was determined to do it, and now he has that diploma."

Matthews said now he is living a "whole different life completely." He is thinking of pursuing a vocational technical degree, looking for a job and recording rap music.

Harlan said she is glad to hear of former students who are continuing their education.

"The high school diploma is the bare minimum of education," she said. "This is just the beginning. You can't stop. It opens the door for you so you can continue to do whatever you dream."

n Reporter Erin Mathews can be reached at 822-1415 or by e-mail at emathews@salina.com.