GED program’s fund to help students pay test fees running low

BRISTOL, Tenn. – When Deborah Presnell got pregnant at 16, she dropped out of high school to take care of her newborn.
Unfortunately, her son, now 29, followed her lead, dropping out of high school before his 17th birthday.

Since then, Presnell said, the two have made a simple promise to each other: If she enrolled in a General Equivalency Diploma course and got her diploma, he would do the same.

“I’m determined,” Presnell said as she studied her GED workbook during a Wednesday night class at Bristol Motor Speedway. “That way, I will know I succeeded with him.”

Presnell was one of about a dozen students who showed up for the class, offered by the Kingsport-Sullivan County GED Program, and each had his or her own reason for being there.
David Boggs enrolled because he needs a diploma to join the U.S. Army and support his 2-year-old daughter.
Jessica Webb, who dropped out of high school two years ago due to health problems, wants to get a job as a nurse.

Eighty-five people like Presnell, Boggs and Webb have received GEDs through the program since July 1. The classes are offered twice a week at the speedway and at Kingsport’s Legion Center, program Director Lowell Biller said.

“It takes a tremendous amount of courage for a student who has dropped out of high school to start our program,” Biller said.

Another 230 people got their diplomas after enrolling between July 1, 2008, and June 30, he said.

It also takes money to get a GED, Biller said.
Although the publicly funded classes and course materials are free, students must come up with the $65 fee to take and pass five subject tests – reading, writing, social studies, math, and science – necessary to get the diploma.

Biller said about 65 percent to 70 percent of students in the program need help paying the fee, especially since the Tennessee Department of Labor stopped offering many people $40 test fee vouchers after the state’s most recent round of budget cuts.

Many of the program’s students end up delaying the tests because they can’t afford the fee, Biller said, even if it means they might forget some of the material covered in class.

Biller said the program doesn’t have enough room in its $178,000 annual budget, 80 percent of which is federal money and 20 percent from the state, to cover the test fees. But it does have access to a $1,200 scholarship fund fueled by donations from private businesses and individuals.

That fund, however, is now down to $400 as more and more people who can’t afford the test fee are taking the program’s classes. In many cases, Biller said, members of his staff are digging into their own pockets to help students pay the fee.

“We can’t do it alone,” Biller said Monday, when he asked the Sullivan County Commission for help. “This is something that is just too huge.”
Biller’s Monday request followed a plea to the Kingsport Board of Mayor and Aldermen earlier this year. City spokesman Tim Whaley said Wednesday the board set aside $13,000 Oct. 20 to help Kingsport residents who are enrolled in the program.

While it’s uncertain which direction the county commission will take on the request, a few commissioners, including Bart Long, of Bristol, pledged their own money to help some of Biller’s students.

“I can’t imagine not supporting something to help somebody who has put all of the effort in to take the course,” Long said Monday.
According to U.S. Census data, 18 percent of the county’s adult population age 25 and older did not graduate from high school or get a GED.
Long said that statistic makes it difficult to attract new jobs.

At Monday’s meeting, Biller said he also plans to ask the Bristol Tennessee City Council for help when that group meets Dec. 1. Though he hadn’t heard about the request, Mayor Fred Testa said he thought it was something the council could support.

“That’s something we’ll have to talk about,” Testa said. “We should try to do anything we can to help them.”

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