Success Story: Bethel Grad Kemani Hurd's Journey to Graduation

Kemani Hurd tried both online and in-person high schools, but he couldn’t seem to hit his stride. Trying to master physics during his junior year, he would go after school for extra help but found himself in a crowded classroom with teachers who couldn’t give him the attention he needed. 

“The teachers couldn’t help me out,” Kemani recalls. He gave up hope. “I just wasn’t going to school. Just didn’t feel like going.” 

For a time, he dropped out. But he wasn’t willing to give up, so he gave himself one last chance — Bethel Acceleration Academies (BAA). He’s glad he did. 

Walking onto campus, he found a relaxed-but-studious atmosphere, comfortable chairs rather than cookie cutter desks and — most importantly — academic and personal coaches who gave him all the time he needed to master the material and make progress toward his diploma. 

“They would walk me through it and make it easier to understand,” he says. 

As he gained momentum and his confidence returned, he saw that he was moving toward realizing not just his dream but also his mother’s. He was going to earn not a GED, but a full-fledged diploma. 

“My mom, she always wanted to be proud of one of her sons graduating high school and succeeding,” says Kemani. “She always wanted to see me graduate.” 

Kemani appreciated that the BAA team stood ready not just to provide him with tutoring in his academic subjects, but also to check in with him on a personal level to see whether they could help him remove any of the non-academic barriers to success. “They’re interested in you as a person, not just as a student.” 

With that help and his own determination, Kemani recently completed the requirements for graduation and is planning to move on to trade school, perhaps to become an electrician. 

He was not alone in celebrating his diploma. “My mom, she was jumping for joy.”