Acceleration Academies_Spring2023_Pathways Magazine
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
ST LUCIE ACCELERATION ACADEMIES<br />
St. Lucie Grad Summer Worthington:<br />
‘Hey Girl, You Got This’<br />
For Summer Worthington, high school was hard<br />
enough. The crowded classrooms and lack of<br />
hands-on help combined with turmoil in her personal<br />
life to make her decide to drop out.<br />
Then she decided to give herself one last chance<br />
— at St. Lucie <strong>Acceleration</strong> <strong>Academies</strong>, where the<br />
quiet environment, flexible scheduling and intensive<br />
one-on-one coaching promised<br />
to help turn her high school<br />
career around.<br />
Then she got pregnant and had<br />
a baby boy, Marshall. She didn’t<br />
have a babysitter or the money to<br />
hire one. How in the world would<br />
she devote herself to her studies<br />
when her infant needed constant<br />
care? “I’m stuck. I don’t know<br />
what to do,” she told SLAA educators.<br />
“They said, ‘Bring him in.’ I<br />
was like, ‘Really?’ ”<br />
Really. Summer came to the<br />
campus on the weekends and<br />
after-hours, ready to work, and the staff took turns<br />
looking after Marshall while she studied. In January,<br />
she joined a group of her fellow graduation candidates<br />
in becoming graduates — celebrating the occasion<br />
not only for herself but also for her little boy.<br />
“He was my main reason to go and do this,” said<br />
Summer — who at 21 was close to the deadline for<br />
“<br />
“I’m stuck. I don’t<br />
know what to do,”<br />
she told SLAA<br />
educators. “They<br />
said, ‘Bring him in.’<br />
I was like, ‘Really?’”<br />
earning her diploma. And if it weren’t for St. Lucie <strong>Acceleration</strong><br />
<strong>Academies</strong>, “I probably never would have<br />
even attempted to get my high school diploma.”<br />
Summer hasn’t had an easy journey. She had a rough<br />
home life growing up, was twice held back in school,<br />
and was kidnapped just after her 16th birthday by a<br />
man she met online. The trauma led to her spending<br />
five months in a residential mental<br />
health facility, putting her even further<br />
behind in school.<br />
<strong>Acceleration</strong> <strong>Academies</strong> celebrates our recent graduates!<br />
After enrolling at SLAA, Summer<br />
struggled at times to stay on track.<br />
But she says the educators there never<br />
gave up on her. Especially helpful<br />
were graduation candidate advocate<br />
Coralynn Long and social studies<br />
coach Orlando Ashah.<br />
“They would push me every day, say,<br />
‘Come on Summer, you need to come<br />
in and do your work,’ ” she recalled.<br />
Sometimes she wouldn’t answer her<br />
phone, but they persisted. “It was like<br />
‘Hey girl, you got this.’ ”<br />
Eventually, she did. Now that she has her diploma<br />
in hand, she’s making plans to study mortuary and<br />
forensic science in college.<br />
“I want to jump back into school,” Summer declares.<br />
“I’m not stopping.”
Change language