I was a school dropout, but we just won $500,000 for giving students like me a second chance
The status quo in education writes-off most students, especially dropouts
It was a chilly morning in Montana 1998, and I was finally going home. I had spent last 18 months at a “therapeutic” boarding school after a few stints in jails and wilderness programs. But instead of conveniently flying home, I was told I’d be taking a multi-day, Greyhound bus home, alone, and with very little cash. It was a last boarding school lesson I needed.
I thought a lot on that long cross-country journey about how badly broken “the system” for kids like me who made mistakes or who simply learned differently. This experience steeled me for the work I do now for students in need—for students who are like I was.
I joined Oakmont Education to find and support students who have dropped out to recover their education with individualized, hands-on learning, and skills-based job training. We recognize that dropouts don’t lose their potential to contribute simply because they dropped out of school. Oakmont offers dropouts a second chance at education—at lifelong learning. Ultimately, our number one goal is to restore a student’s capacity to hope, to provide pathways to the middle class, and to address the current worker shortage problem impacting too many communities across the country.
Too many among us still expect students to learn along a linear and an antiquated educational continuum. But why are we still opting for the same failed systems that have pushed kids like me towards the cracks?
