Seven graduates paraded across the carpeted floor of the Durango Community Recreation Center’s sunshine room this week to receive their GED diplomas. While the ceremony itself was short and sweet, the road for some was far from that.
“Being here today feels good,” said graduate Mickael Sikes. “It's been a long time coming.”
Kirsten Chesney, the Education Center’s communications and outreach manager, estimates the graduates’ ages range from 17 to 45.
Regardless of the factors that kept them from graduating along a traditional timeline, the graduates demonstrated their dedication to themselves and their pursuit of knowledge by enrolling in and successfully completing the General Educational Diploma program.
“Anybody can do it,” Sikes said. “No matter how old you get, you should always try to seek out knowledge and growing as an individual.”
As the ceremony commenced, graduates walked into the room with a rendition of the “Pomp and Circumstance” song playing before filing into the first two rows of chairs facing the stage.
In her welcome speech, Adult Education Center Executive Director Susan Hakanson commended the graduates for their accomplishments before attributing a single adjective to the class: courageous.
“I’m blown away daily by the courage you have shown me, and just the stick-to-it’ness that I’ve seen from all of you. You make me incredibly proud.”
Following the welcome address, Colorado state Rep. Barbara McLachlan took the lectern.
McLachlan, who served as a teacher for over two decades, praised the graduates’ dedication to getting their degrees and stressed the importance of learning and knowledge acquisition.
“I believe education is the best gift you can give yourself and the world,” she said.
For many, the road to getting a high school diploma or equivalent is not straight forward.
Hakanson explained that any number of factors, ranging from family obligations to learning disabilities, can prevent individuals from graduating high school along a traditional timeline.
One of Wednesday’s graduates was Monyca Escalanta, a 39-year-old mother of six.
Escalanta took about a year to complete the Education Center’s GED program, focusing on one subject area at a time.
Escalanta jokes that math was her hardest subject, but it was no match for her determination to get her GED certificate.
For Escalanta, and many program participants like her, the implications of receiving her GED certificate are momentous.
“Now I have unlimited opportunities; I can do so much,” she said. “I want to go do cosmetology, but I feel like I can do anything.”
Escalanta stressed the impact the Education Center staff had on her success.
“Everyone was so wonderful, and they all gave me so much support,” she said. “I would honestly say these are the best teachers I’ve ever had. I love them. They’re so great. They’re very welcoming and gave a lot of confidence.”
Hakanson says the GED program is designed to give students as much support and flexibility as they need.
Program participants had vastly different schedules and learning capabilities.
To accommodate this, the Durango Adult Education GED Program offers four eight-week-long sessions in which students can take up to two courses.
Hakanson said the program is designed to prepare participants for the GED assessment, which is comprised of four subject areas: mathematics, science, reading language arts and social science.
“Some students pass the test after one eight-week session, some only need to attend classes for three or four weeks, and some take the sessions twice,” Hakanson said. “It just depends on what their background is.”
While the lives and histories of the program participants vary vastly, their motivations for enrolling are almost always along the same line: the desire for more opportunities.
“Not having a GED inhibits people from moving into and postsecondary classes like colleges or training programs or any certificate programs,” Hakanson said. “Employment is also much harder to get if you don’t have a high school diploma.”
Wednesday’s graduates are just a few of the 36 students who have successfully completed the Education Center’s GED Program so far in 2023. Group members said they plan to travel, study art, engineering and cosmetology. In the words of Escalante, “the possibilities are endless.”
lveress@durangoherald.com
