Back in School After Baby
Nikki McDonald Bessemer City, N.C. - Of the four kids in her family, Nikki McDonald and her brother Eddie were the two everyone expected to graduate from high school. Eddie got his diploma. After getting married and finding out she was pregnant during her junior year, though, Nikki made the decision to drop out of high school, breaking a promise she made three years before to her dying mother.
"Before my mom died, I promised her I would finish high school. She knew how much I loved school and that I really wanted to finish," McDonald,18, recalled. McDonald lost her mother, who did not complete the ninth grade, to colon cancer shortly after her 13th birthday. Afterward, she planned to become a nurse to help others and build on the skills she learned while taking care of her sick mother.
"I was a mama's girl," McDonald said proudly.
McDonald's plans changed, though, when she met her husband, Bobby at Hunter Huss High School in Gastonia. They met in her P.E. class when McDonald was 14 years old. While McDonald enjoyed many things about high school - her friends, her computer classes, and her position as a media assistant in the school library, to name a few - her school life quickly began to center around her new boyfriend.
"What really encouraged me to go school was to see Bobby," she recalled.
A Weighty Decision
McDonald's father, who quit high school in the 10th grade, eventually realized that his daughter's relationship with Bobby had become very serious. At his insistence, and to the couple's excitement, McDonald and Bobby married a few months after her 16th birthday.
McDonald originally intended to finish high school while married, but began to feel ostracized by many of the teachers and students.
"I was still going to school when me and Bobby got married. Teachers looked at me funny after I got married, like I was the only one who was married at school," she said.
Three months after she got married, McDonald discovered she was pregnant. While she had been thinking of quitting high school since she got married, her pregnancy compelled her to finally do it.
McDonald's teachers tried to discourage her from dropping out.
"Oh, they didn't like that at all. They tried to tell me I shouldn't to it because I would regret it," McDonald said.
Her teachers weren't alone in their admonishments. Bobby, who had already dropped out of high school at that point, tried to dissuade her as well.
"My husband was in 10th grade when he quit. He knew he had made a mistake, and I think that's why he tried to stop me from doing it," she said. Despite their reservations, though, McDonald quit school the second semester of her junior year.
McDonald's decision to drop out of high school reflects other students' decisions in a few ways. For one, the fact that neither of her parents finished the 10th grade increased the likelihood that McDonald herself would drop out. According to the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network Report, a student's chances of quitting high school are greater if the student's parents did not complete high school.
Pregnancy and marriage both surfaced as reasons for dropping out by North Carolina students who dropped out of high school in 2007-08, although in low percentages. According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 256 students who dropped out of high school in 2007-08 listed pregnancy as the primary reason, while 36 listed marriage.
Back to School
In December 2008, just shy of two years after she dropped out of high school, McDonald got her G.E.D from Gaston College. She became so determined to get her G.E.D that she went to the labs and practice test sessions every chance she got and completed the program in three weeks.
"I was just ready to get into college. I was sitting around thinking, 'I want to do what I told my mom I wanted to do,'" she remembered.
It was in McDonald's G.E.D classes that she met Joy Morrow, a Life Skills Recruiter working at the Gaston County JobLink Career Center, who encouraged her to pursue a Certified Nursing Assistant (C.N.A.) program.
"She had expressed interest in going to college. She wanted to be able to get a good job so she could be an example to her daughter," Morrow explained.
McDonald wanted to pursue a C.N.A. certification, but she worried she would not be able to afford it. Morrow gave McDonald the phone number of YouthWorks, a program that provides financial assistance to eligible youth between the ages of 14 and 21. Eligibility is based on financial need.
McDonald called Youthworks and discovered she would receive funding for the C.N.A. program.
"She seemed so excited by the opportunity. Every time I spoke to Nikki, I could hear the determination in her voice. She has always been very positive and confident that she could do it," Morrow observed.
McDonald attends C.N.A. classes every Monday and Wednesday from 5:30 p.m. - 10:20 p.m. at Gaston College's Lincolnton campus, which is a 45-minute drive from her home in Bessemer City. She admitted that it has been difficult to balance raising her family with her classes and commute, but that continuing her education has been worth it.
"I would tell people who are going through the same thing as me that it does feel great to go back because once you drop out you feel like you've failed. I finally feel like I have achieved something," she said.
As for how McDonald plans to break her family's dropout pattern with her daughter, Katelyn, now 18 months old, she is adament. While she said she does not want to live out her own dreams through her daughter, when it comes to finishing high school, McDonald said Katelyn will have only one option.
"I wouldn't let her [drop out]! There's no way. That's one thing I'll make her do - college is her choice, but as far as high school, you need it," McDonald said emphatically.

