BAA Grad Trista White: Acceleration Academies Has Really Changed My Life for the Better

When her baby Esme was born with her intestines outside her body, Trista White and the child’s dad lived in the hospital room for months, supporting  their child as doctors performed surgery after surgery and dealt with complication after complication. 

Trista showered her baby with love 24/7 but felt powerless to do much more. She decided it was time to do something she had been thinking about for a long time: get her high school career back on track. 

“I really just wanted to finish something, to accomplish something,” says Trista, who had dropped out. “I went to school all these years and didn’t have a diploma to show for it. I was already setting a bad example for my daughter.” 

Traditional high school had not worked for her. “Sitting in a regular classroom for me personally was not really a good fit. There were at least 30 kids in the same classroom, so there were a lot of other people who needed attention. I didn’t speak up as well as I should have and it was really hard to get that one-on-one time that I needed.” 

Complicating matters, she had to work full-time to earn money to support her extended family even before Esme arrived. She had a job as shift manager at an Arby’s restaurant, worked from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and had to use city buses to get around — a schedule that left no room for standard high school hours. 

She found her way to Bethel Acceleration Academies, where the flexible scheduling and personalized coaching enabled her to turn the corner — and to turn it so well that she recently held Esme in her arms and celebrated her graduation.  

“I surely would not have graduated,” says Trista, 21. “I wouldn’t have thought a lot of things through without the help of the coaches there.” 

Trista acknowledges that even after coming to BAA, she sometimes let her attention and studies drift. She credits Assistant Director and social studies content coach Kevin Torres with never giving up on her, reminding her again and again of her potential for success. 

“Coach Torres was the number one person who kept in touch with me,” she says. “That was super-nice and super-helpful.” 

And that support extended through the entire BAA team, whose members provided her and her classmates with steady attention, academic support and personal encouragement. “They helped me to stay on task and pushed me to do my work.” 

Happily, the medical interventions helped Esme overcome her medical challenges and leave the hospital with strong prospects for a healthy life. “She’s doing awesome,” Trista reports. “She’s just starting to walk and she started talking.” 

And Trista has a dream: She’d like to study clothing design in college and develop her own line of garments for children like Esme whose medical conditions don’t allow for normal attire. And that hope has a strong chance of becoming a reality thanks to the foundation she laid at Bethel Acceleration Academies.” 

 “Acceleration Academies has really changed my life for the better.”

Bethel Acceleration Academies accepts students on a rolling basis. For more information, check out the academy web page and fill out an online enrollment form.