Despite obstacles, students succeed

NEW PORT RICHEY - Amid great applause, 18-year old Michael Winans made his way to the podium to collect his award. He turned to his peers, held up the certificate, grinned and said, "See, you all didn't believe me. I told you."

Then he shared a hug with his mom. "I'm so proud of him," said a beaming Susan Winans.

For Michael, earning an award for the highest overall score (and another one for the highest score in science) in the GED given to students at Marchman Technical Education Center, is just the beginning. Because Michael also passed the FCAT, on May 23 he will don a cap and gown to collect his high school diploma at the commencement ceremony at River Ridge High School. In June he heads off to the Navy.

Michael is just one of some 30 students to be recognized Thursday in the Performance Based Diploma Program at Marchman Technical Education Center. County Commissioner Peter Altman was the keynote speaker for the special luncheon that also was attended by family and friends of the graduates. Marchman principal Rob Aguis delivered the closing remarks.

Roughly 150 will graduate from the program county-wide, said Bob Dorn, administrative assistant for secondary adult and alternative schools.

The Performance Based Diploma program is a drop-out retrieval program offered to students who don't fit into the typical high school mold and who have been academically unsuccessful, said Cheri Moran, who serves as a counselor for the Marchman program. In order to complete the program, students must pass the FCAT and GED, maintain a 2.0 grade point average and take a series of vocational and work experience courses.

"It's an intensive program," Dorn said. "Most of the students are older. It takes a real commitment on their part to come back and work at it. It's a challenge."

"They've had such excess baggages," said English teacher Anne Marie Wasp. "Some of these kids are single moms, some are kids raising parents, some have come under the influence of drugs, some live on their own - it's a real mixed bag. They have overcome many obstacles."

Now they've succeeded.

"Basically I just slacked off in ninth grade and couldn't get the (high school) credits I needed (to graduate)," said Michael Winans. "This was my best bet."

Another graduate, 17-year-old Amanda Hatfield was diagnosed with Lupus when she was 15. "I quit school for three years because I was sick," said Amanda, who was flanked by her 23-month-old nephew, Ethan Lovelace, her mother, Karen Hatfield, and a bouquet of red roses

"We were thinking she wasn't going to graduate until she was 21," said a tearful Mrs. Hatfield. Amanda was schooled through a Homebound program during much of her illness, which entailed monthly chemotherapy treatments. Then she enrolled at Marchman.

"I like it," Amanda said. "The kids are nice. I made friends with just about everybody. I'd recommend it to anybody who's had my problems."

Amanda also passed the FCAT and is looking forward to graduation and the Pomp and Circumstance walk at her zoned school, River Ridge High.

Still, she has a long way to go.

"I'm pregnant, at the end of my first trimester," Amanda said. "It wasn't supposed to happen" with the medications she's taking for lupus.

"We are taking it one day at a time," said her mother, "but she's going to college."