Now that Nicholas Joseph has a high school diploma in hand, the sky’s the limit — literally.
“Space, it’s the future,” says Nicholas, a well-spoken young man who wants to study astrophysics in college and became the 200th graduate of Bethel Acceleration Academies since the school opened in 2014.
Citing the recent success of commercial flights by private businessmen Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, he said, “We want to go to Mars, we want to go to the moon. We’re going to do a lot more things in space.”
Not long ago, Nicholas’s ambitions seemed as remote as those celestial bodies. Caught up in a combination of family troubles and uneven school attendance, Nicholas faced the possibility of aging out of the public school system.
Then he found BAA. Rather than having to attend school for a set number of hours each day, sit in classrooms with dozens of other students and juggle multiple courses at once, he was able to chart his own path — one class at a time — to a diploma.
“Amazing — It’s given me the opportunity to do whatever I need in my life and still get school done,” said Nicholas.
Rather than providing an environment that supported his studies, Nicholas said, his home life has been challenging at best. His mother, a single mom with five children, has to work long hours and was often away from home. The death of his grandmother, who had been living with them, was devastating. And family members struggled with poverty and addiction — particularly his sister, who Nicholas says nearly died at the hands of a heroin dealer. She survived and, with support from her brother, has gotten clean.
“Things like that, it pulls you away from school,” he said. “It also made me realize life is precious.”
He appreciates that the flexibility afforded by BAA has allowed him to help family members in need, pursue his interests in trading foreign and cryptocurrency, and learn more about his roots as a Native American of Choctaw and Seminole descent. He also appreciated the transportation BAA provided between campus and his home and jobs.
At every step, he said, BAA educators supported his journey.
He credits BAA Director Alison Hansen with helping him overcome challenges in math; social studies coach and Assistant Director Kevin Torres for providing regular boosts; and graduation candidate and resident grandma Jeanne Courtney for regularly looking in on him. “She was helpful for just always being there, checking up.”
Along the way, Nicholas said he’s learned to combine such support with his own self-discipline to reach his goals.
“There are plenty of kids out there, just like me, who have single parents. They don’t have that push, someone saying, ‘Are you doing your homework? How did your test go today?’ ” he said. “If BAA wasn’t here, I would be dropped out of high school, no chance to get a diploma, and my only opportunity would be to get a GED.”
Instead, at age 21, he’s emerging from high school with a 3.6 grade point average, a record that allowed him to land a well-paying job at IKEA and gives him hope for university studies in the not-too-distant future.
What did he learn about himself at BAA? “It proved to me that I’ve got what it takes.”