'I've Been Waiting On This Day': Goodwill Adult High School Graduates 1st Class In St. Louis

Three courses of algebra stood between Amanda McCleary and a high school diploma.

McCleary, 33, tried twice over the years to earn a GED certificate since dropping out of Vashon High School in St. Louis as a teenager, but the timing wasn’t quite right. When she learned from a friend about a high school for adults being started by MERS Goodwill, “I called instantly,” she said.

McCleary was one of five women in bright blue caps and gowns at the first graduation ceremony in downtown St. Louis Wednesday evening for the alternative high school program that started in October. A sixth student had to miss the ceremony for work.

McCleary, who clutched her diploma and a bouquet in one hand as she moved her tassel from right to left with the other, said it meant “everything in the fact that my children are watching me walk across the stage; it just was the icing on the cake.”

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ive-been-waiting-day-goodwill-adult-high-school-graduates-1st-class-st-louis