The Adult Education graduation is a very emotional event for friends and family members because all of their students went get recognized for their hard work. The Adult Ed. class of 2024 had their graduation ceremony on Thur. May 30.
Graduate Ryhan Kelley expresses how the Adult Education Program was very emotional, but an “amazing thing to accomplish.”
“Adult Education was one of the biggest mental decisions I made through high school,” Kelley said. “The hours of work in the classroom and outside were long and challenging.”
At times, Kelley felt “defeated” and thought that she would not have been able to attend her graduation.
“I didn’t believe I was going to make it to graduation and spent days feeling defeated while trying to complete work,” Kelley said.
Kelley knows it was worth the wait because of the “ultimate satisfaction” she got out of this day.
“In the end, the feeling of accomplishing graduating was a greater feeling and was worth the hard work,” Kelley said.
Adult Education Director Crystal Rich finds “so much joy” in working with children individually to help them achieve the goals that they set for themselves.
“When kids come to Adult Ed, what we strive for is a really personalized and individualized plan for them,” Rich said.
Adult Education is able to focus on working with students one on one to find what paths they would like to take on when leaving high school.
“If they have an interest in some sort of trade or whatever it may be, we like to find internships so that they [have] hands-on learning,” Rich said.
The program offers students opportunities to take classes at different times so they are able to explore what they want to focus on in the future.
“They are taking evening classes, which means they can work during the day if they want to,” Rich said.
There is no “one reason” to join Adult Education because it can affect everyone differently, especially with the size of school according to Rich.
“Londonderry High School is a really big school,” Rich said. “Kids often want to come to adult ed because it is much smaller, and we work one on one with every kid we have to.”
Many kids take a step forward and decide to leave high school programs to start their career right away. This happened with multiple students this year.
“I have kids that come to me and say they want to go into the fire academy, and want to graduate a year early,” Rich said.
Some people don’t take away the full meaning of Adult Education, and sometimes the experience can be perceived the wrong way. Rich believes it is important to know the program’s value.
“I think there is a stigma that there is ‘oh they are the kids that didn’t make it,’” Rich said. “That’s not the case at all. Many of the kids here tonight are graduating a year early.”
Rich is not new to the Adult Education program, as she has been teaching and working with students for 20 years.
“I started teaching summer school, then I transitioned into teaching Adult Ed., and it became my favorite,” Rich said.
Something that inspired Rich to keep pursuing teaching adult ed is the connections that she can make to friends and family to show that there are programs out there that can support everyone.
“I had a very close family member who struggled in school and the transitional model didn’t work for him, and if he had something like this he would have strived like there was no tomorrow,” Rich said.
Seeing family members go through personal journeys that weren’t the best was a great inspiration for Rich to help make different paths for individuals.
“My sister in law graduated from Adult Ed when I was teaching twenty years ago, and she is wildly successful, and I just wholeheartedly believe that the traditional path of education is not for everyone,” Rich said.
The teachers on staff for Adult Ed is what is able to make the program run so successfully, and Rich appreciates everything that they do for the kids.
“These teachers are what makes this work, we build the framework, but my staff is the best staff around. They love these kids more than anything. To me, that’s most important,” Rich said.
More than anything, Rich focuses on the impact she is able to make on a student, and how she is able to connect with every individual.
“I work hard to build relationships with each one of the kids and I love being with them, and I think sometimes they just need people to see them differently,” Rich said.
*above date correction, Thur. May 30.
THE GRADUATES:
Rhianna Cleaves
Connor Dolbec
Tyler Doiron
Ryhan Kelley
Lukas Kilroy
Nicholas Koval
Aiden Lonsberry
Jakob Martinez
Adrian Mejia
Rosalia Menento
Katherine Poirier
Daniel Salie
