‘It’s never too late’
Hartford’s Adult Education Center grads have unique paths to their diplomas
HARTFORD — Jennifer Sanchez attended two high school commencement ceremonies on Thursday.
First, she watched her daughter, Jitzy Alica, graduate from Weaver High School in the morning. Then she received her GED in the evening from the Adult Education Center of Hartford in the evening.
Sanchez, 37, was one of 35 adults ranging in age from 20 to 66 who successfully completed their high school education and received diplomas at the Adult Education Center this year.
Sanchez, a pharmacy technician who also works in the emergency room at Hartford Hospital, said she graduated from high school in Puerto Rico years ago but the documentation was lost. She decided to go back to school to set an example for Alica.
“I went back to school, just to teach her it’s never too late to go back and educate yourself,” she said.
Sanchez was also motivated to receive a diploma because prospective employers were asking her for a physical diploma.
Alica, still clad in her Weaver green robes and mortar board at the Adult Education commencement, said she was proud of her mother and was thrilled to share the day with her.
“She raised me by herself,” Alica said. “I’m excited I was able to have this opportunity to do it with her on the same day and be able to have her support. A lot of kids don’t have that support. I got my mom’s support.”
As several speakers noted, each graduate had a unique story as to why they took an alternative path to earn their diplomas, but they were all united in the common bond that it’s never too late to go back to school. And that it’s never too late to improve.
“The challenges of our society, the challenges of our community, the challenges of the days that lie ahead, we need some folks that want to be great. … I feel there is greatness in this room.
— The Rev. Dr. Albert Bailey, keynote speaker
Rev. Dr. Albert Bailey, the keynote speaker, said it took nine different schools to get through K-12 and no shortage of scrapes with the law before he ultimately graduated.
“Couldn’t nobody steal a car like me,” he said. “I had to come to the conclusion that life wasn’t a game, but life is a journey.”
Drawing from the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, Bailey highlighted the stanza, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep / But I have promises to keep / And miles to go before I sleep / And miles to go before I sleep.”
“[The traveler] could have stopped right there,” Bailey said. “He could have called it a night. … He could have said, ‘From now on, I’m going to dwell in this state.’ … It was good for me to remain in this moment.”
But Bailey said even though the moment was beautiful, and the traveler could pause and reflect on it, he still had a long way to go and commitments to fulfill.
“In order to get here, you had to travel some roads,” Bailey said. “You came a long way in a short time and know that this night, in these beautiful woods, on this snowy evening, I want you to make a promise to yourself that you’ve got some promises to keep, and you’ve got some miles to go before you sleep.”
Bailey advised the graduates that along their journeys, they would have to let some people and things go.
“As you leave your snowy evening, you’ve got to leave them in the woods,” he said. “The people, the places, the things that will cause you to stay in the woods. … You’ve got to let some folks go on your journey.”
He also challenged them to strive to be their best.
“The world doesn’t need more good people,” he said. “Everybody in this room that’s graduating tonight, I’m commanding you right now to be great. We got enough good folks in the world. But the challenges of our society, the challenges of our community, the challenges of the days that lie ahead, we need some folks that want to be great. … I feel there is greatness in this room.”
The Rev. AJ Johnson, the vice-chairman of the Hartford Board of Education, said there are 86,400 seconds in every day. Johnson told the graduates to spend those seconds wisely.
AEC Assistant Director Jacqueline
Mann noted the challenges the graduates often had to cope with while also completing their course requirements.
“These are the folks who worked full-time jobs, who raised families, but still found time to study and to complete assignments and come to class,” said Mann, adding they have bright futures ahead. “You have so much to offer your family, your friends, your community. Be bold as you go forward. Be the best you can be.”
In her comments, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Leslie Torres-rodriguez called the 35 graduates “impressive,” noting many of them started at AEC during the pandemic.
“When I reflect on the last 27 months, and you heard them tonight, many of them started when we closed schools and when everything shut down and they’re still here and they continued to show up,” she said. “It gives us all hope for what’s to come.”
Class of 2022 speaker Giani Joseph said she only intended to visit the U.S. from the Caribbean for a short while back in 2020. Then the pandemic struck and she wasn’t able to travel back to her home country so she decided to, as she put it, make “lemonade out of lemons” and go to school at the Adult Education Center.
Her journey ultimately led her to being accepted to Tuskegee University in Alabama.
Graduate Camay Paternostro, the oldest of 15 children in her family, dropped out of school in the 10th grade. At 23, with two young children of her own, she enrolled in the AEC at the beginning of the school year, only to have her kids get COVID, which turned into pneumonia.
That led Paternostro to drop out of school again, only to re-enroll after she got a job as a dental assistant.
“I’m just ecstatic I actually got to do it,” she said. “I’m setting a role model for my children, and not only my children, but my siblings as well. I’m still still kind of in shock that I actually graduated and actually did it at my age. I’m happy. I’m really happy.”
For Sanchez and Alica, the evening gave them a moment to share and celebrate their inexorable bond, which was reflected on their mortar boards.
“All thanks to you,” Alica wrote, with photos of Sanchez attached.
“I wanted to give up but then I remembered who was watching,” Sanchez said, with a photo of her two daughters fastened.