March 7, 2023 | Jeffrey Good
For Summer Worthington, high school was hard enough. The crowded classrooms and lack of hands-on help combined with turmoil in her personal life to make her decide to drop out.
Then she decided to give herself one last chance — at St. Lucie Acceleration Academies, where the quiet environment, flexible scheduling and intensive one-on-one coaching promised to help turn her high school career around.
Then she got pregnant and had a baby boy, Marshall. She didn’t have a babysitter or the money to hire one. How in the world would she devote herself to her studies when her infant needed constant care?
“I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do,” she told SLAA educators. “They said, ‘Bring him in.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ ”
Really. Summer came regularly to the campus, ready to work, and the coaches took turns looking after Marshall while she studied. In January, she joined a group of her fellow graduation candidates in becoming graduates — celebrating the occasion not only for herself but also for little boy.
“He was my main reason to go and do this,” said Summer — who at 21 was close to the deadline for earning her diploma. And if it weren’t for St. Lucie Acceleration Academies, “I probably never would have even attempted to get my high school diploma.”
Summer hasn’t had an easy journey. She had a rough home life growing up, was twice held back in school, and was kidnapped just after her 16th birthday by a man she met online. The trauma led to her spending five months in a residential mental health facility, putting her even further behind in school.
After enrolling at SLAA, Summer struggled at times to stay on track. But she says the educators there never gave up on her. Especially helpful were graduation candidate advocate Coralynn Long and social studies coach Orlando Ashah.
“They would push me every day, say, ‘Come on Summer, you need to come in and do your work,’ ” she recalled. Sometimes, she wouldn’t answer her phone, but they persisted. “It was like ‘Hey girl, you got this.’ ”
Eventually, she did. Now that she has her diploma in hand, she’s making plans to study mortuary and forensic science in college.
“I want to jump back into school,” Summer declares. “I’m not stopping.”
St. Lucie Acceleration Academies accepts new students on a rolling basis. For more information, check out the academy web page and fill out an online enrollment form.
