Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made his way toward New Heights High School’s mechanical shop class as students gathered around him.
He learned about the skills students learn as they prepare for their future careers.
One student told Abbott she had a newfound lease on life all because of New Heights, the state’s first adult charter school in which students earn a full high school diploma.
Abbott, state lawmakers and Fort Worth officials celebrated the grand opening of New Heights on Sept. 25. The school is the start of a larger statewide effort to tap into the 7 million Texans who do not have a high school diploma and widen opportunities for economic prosperity, according to officials.
Abbott asked the students if they realized the transformational nature of their school.
“Do you realize that you’re on the threshold of making a lot of money?” Abbott said. “Most of them had no idea.”
Texas needs a strong, educated workforce and New Heights is providing adults the training they need to change their lives, on top of earning a high school diploma, Abbott said.
Tarrant County College Chancellor Elva LeBlanc described the school as providing students the skills and knowledge to pull themselves up by their own boot straps. Every New Heights student also enrolls in TCC.
The school is creating pathways for adults that lead to better jobs — and bigger paychecks, Abbott said.
“Here, we’re putting the marker in the ground in Fort Worth, Texas, that we as a state are going to give all of those adults across the state a new opportunity to advance their lives, their career and their families,” the governor said.
New Heights CEO Traci Berry has worked for more than a decade to launch New Heights. She led a pilot program in Austin to fine-tune the model as she rallied support in the Legislature for the bill that paved the way for the state’s first adult charter school in Fort Worth.
“In 2013, I walked into the Capitol with an idea and the belief that age should not be a deterrent for education,” Berry said. “A high school diploma is the greatest determinant of earning power, generational education, safety and security — and more than 7 million Texans lack this credential.”
Interest in the school has been overwhelming, Berry said. She and her staff planned to have 350 students. Instead, 1,400 applications flooded the school’s inbox.
“It shows the incredible need for New Heights,” she said.
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker told an audience gathered inside New Heights about watching her mother teach GED and English-as-a-second-language classes while she was growing up. Parker’s mom told her that it was her favorite thing she has ever done in life because she looked in the eyes of her students and saw the realization that they had a second chance.
“That’s what you’re accomplishing,” Parker told New Heights students sitting in front of her.
Pete Geren, president of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, and Mayor Pro Tempore Gyna Bivens framed the school in context of the larger happenings of education in Fort Worth. The celebration of New Heights came right on the heels of Fort Worth ISD’s superintendent resigning amid criticism of lingering low academic performance.
More than 40 community leaders, including the entire Fort Worth City Council, signed a letter by Parker saying that workforce development doesn’t start in college nor high school, Geren said.
“It starts in elementary school. Our kids have to learn to read, and our council members, under the leadership of our mayor, have stepped up and said there’s nothing more important for the future of our community than our children learning to read — and, right now, we’re not doing a very good job of it,” Geren said. “It’s a crisis. It’s a moral crisis. And it’s a civic crisis. And it’s critical to our workforce.”
Fort Worth resident Crystal Adams, 25, is among the inaugural students at New Heights. She enrolled because she faced difficulty finding a job. She dropped out of high school because she faced transportation problems and found herself hanging out with the wrong crowd and giving into peer pressure, she said.
“But now I’m doing better for myself,” Adams said. “I’m a little more grown now, so I want to do what’s best for my future.”
Adams wants to become a nurse. While she is ultimately helping herself, Adams doesn’t see it that way. She simply wants to take care of people.
Parker spotlighted the immense interest in New Heights in her remarks.
“The last thing I want to say is this: 1,400 people applied for these spots,” she said. “I think we need one more in Fort Worth.”
Reporter Camilo Diaz contributed to this story.
Disclosure: The Sid W. Richardson Foundation has been a financial supporter of the Fort Worth Report. News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Jacob Sanchez is a senior education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
