Getting a GED: Better late than never

For more than a year, Teri Zutter has been staging monthly bootcamps at Western Nevada College.

Instead of calisthenics, though, the focus is on math, science and English. Zutter runs a program to help people earn their GED - the equivalent of a high school education.

Zutter wears fatigues throughout the 84-hour course, which trains students how to take and pass the GED. It's an experience Zutter, 48, a GED holder, shared after dropping out of high school.

"I returned to school as a single mom and I needed some retooling, as they say, and completed my associates from WNC and completed my B.A.," Zutter said. "It's a pleasure to work in this field. I am proof that education changes your life."

While it may not guarantee a job, more Nevadans are pursing their GED as the state wallows with 14 percent unemployment - the highest in the nation.

In 2007, 5,703 people attempted to obtain their GED. By 2009, that number grew to 7,019, according to the state Department of Education.

"It's a transformative experience," Zutter said. "Like it almost gives them credibility as a person. And then once the credibility is established ... they can do whatever they want."

The Nevada Appeal sat down with three locals who earned their GED after attending the program at WNC.

Jessica Leman said she may be small, but never had any problems working in her chosen field: Landscaping.

"I dropped out early when I was young and had gone straight into what I enjoyed, or what I thought I wanted to do, which was greenhouse landscaping," Leman said. "I'm a smaller woman and I can keep up with the best of them."

She eventually started a business in Davis, Calif., and landscaped front yards for about 12 years.

But last year she realized she needed a change. The back-breaking work of gardening and digging ditches was wearing on her.

"So the only way I figured was to go back to school and get a GED to get a better job," she said.

Today Leman is pursing her associates degree at Western Nevada College with her sights on becoming a counselor. She wants to get her doctorate in counseling and open her own private practice to help low-income families who may slip through society's safety nets.

"I'll probably be 40 by the time I'm done (with school)," she said with a smile.

Leman said she was never a big fan of school - the teachers "were overworked, underpaid and hated their jobs and that was taken out on a lot of students."

But school continued to nag at her after dropping out of high school.

"That came a little bit later, it was one of those things," she said. "I lived near a college and there were so many classes I wanted to take, but I needed my GED first."

Leman moved back to Carson City to live with her grandmother and decided to enroll in the school's GED bootcamp program.

Looking back, Leman said she enjoyed her years working outdoors with her hands - she said she wasn't ready for an office job at the time, anyway.

"I miss it, however, I think I just really like gardening for myself these days," she said. "I definitely don't miss digging ditches."

James Streeter minces no words when talking about his high school.

"The type of environment I was in, it wasn't a very good one," he said. "It was just a bunch of gangs."

Tattoos cover Streeter's arms. He said they're from his past life in Haywood, Calif.

"When I met my wife she told me she didn't want me around that stuff no more," he said, sitting in a lobby at Western Nevada College. "So dropped everything and just came to Nevada. Didn't look back."

Today, Streeter is working at Carson Toyota and Scion as a porter - an opportunity awarded to him after he earned his GED earlier this year.

"I went back to get my GED because there was hardly any work around and I decided to take advantage of the time I had," he said.

Streeter also got his commercial drivers license and is responsible for moving cars around the dealership. He hopes to eventually become a paramedic.

"If I didn't have my education then I probably wouldn't have gotten this job," he said.

At 16, Streeter decided to drop out of high school to go to work for the family upholstery business.

"(My mom) left it to my decision and I left high school in 10th grade, so for the rest of my life I just worked really hard," Streeter said. "Now that I have my GED and my (commercial drivers license), I have a career."

He and his wife now have three children.

"I dug myself a hole when I was a kid and now I'm barely digging myself out," he said.

Construction has been a part of Jackson Sutton's life ever since he dropped out of high school his senior year.

The journeyman carpenter, 36, grew up in Florida and found work with a Carson City company a few years ago. He joined a local union in 2004.

The work was plentiful for a while, but once the recession's stranglehold on the construction industry tightened the work dried up.

"Last year it just went dead, so I was just sitting around collecting my unemployment," Sutton said.

That's when he decided to go back to complete his high school degree.

He enrolled at WNC's GED bootcamp program and passed the test. While he struggled with the writing, the math came easily thanks to his years in construction.

On Thursday, Sutton took a placement exam after enrolling in the college's construction management program for the fall. He hopes to eventually transfer to a four-year school to study engineering.

"I'm pretty much as far as I can go in my field anyway," he said of his construction job. "(Unemployment) made me go, which is sad to say, but I'm not someone who's going to collect unemployment."

He said going back to school in his 30s worked out well for him.

"I think it's better for me to come back at this age," Sutton said. "I've done my partying, and now I have my concentration. I'm a lot wiser now, I'm more disciplined and I like studying."

Sutton, a football player in high school, said he got mixed up with the wrong crowd and missed too many days of school, which prevented him from graduating.

"I wish I had done it then, I might have gone to college a lot sooner too," he said. "Like I always say, better late than never."