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Features
Her Persistence Paid Off
2015 Blake High Graduate Finally Gets Her Diploma
BY GWEN HAYES Sentinel Editor
A Howard W. Blake High School Class of 2015 gradu- ate recently earned her high school diploma, after disap- pointments and ‘failures.’ Now she’s full of life, smiles and gratefulness.
Earlicsa Dayle marched with the 2015 Blake High graduates during commence- ment exercises. However, after graduation, she told her mother, Joann Dawson, that she went to school for 12 years and it meant nothing. As a concerned parent, Ms. Dawson inquired further and learned that Earlicsa had missed the FCAT Reading portion by 3 points.
“She had more than 30 credits to graduate, but she could only get a letter of com- pletion,” Ms. Dawson, mother of 2 daughters said. She had applied for and got- ten financial aid to attend HCC. Blake told her that she could apply to the commu-
On hand to help Erlicsa Dayle as she accepts her high school diploma, 1 year and 6 months after she graduated: Ross Anderson, Claudette Reid, Blake Guidance Counselor; Doretha Edgecomb; graduate Earlicsa Dayle, her mom, Joanna Dawson, Noraya Harrison, Lorraine Boone and Jesse Salter, Blake Principal. (Photograph by BRUNSON)
score a couple of times, once by 1 point. Ms. Dawson even tried to get her time ex- tended so that she’d have more chances to past the test. “It was like a tug-of-war. One side would tell me one thing and the other something else.”
Erlicsa turned 20 on Oc- tober 20th. She took the test on Oct. 18th. “For whatever reason the Lord had shown me that I was going to pass this time,” Erlisca said. When the call came the fol- lowing Sunday, she was speechless, “just over- whelmed, she couldn’t even talk. She was boo-h0o crying tears of joy and saying ‘thank you Jesus’,” Ms. Dawson said.
Anderson says he can’t say enough about this young lady and how persistent she was. He made arrangements with Blake High administra- tors and (then School Board member) Ms. Doretha Edgecomb to present the diploma to Erlicsa a few days before Ms. Edgecomb’s final days in office.
“There were a number of people who believed in her, starting with her family. Her lesson to share is one of never giving up. Ross An- derson tutored her and told her, ‘you can do this,’ and showed her how.
“This was the most touch- ing moment I experienced in my educational career and as a member of the Board,” Ms. Edgecomb said.
Erlicsa, who enjoys read- ing, writing, listening to music and sign language (that she learned at Blake), plans to start the study of An- thropology in the summer at Hillsborough Community College. She is now an official 2015 Howard W. Blake High School graduate.
nity college with the letter of completion, but when she tried, she was denied, Ms. Dawson explained.
She tried studying on her own to prepare for taking the test, she kept falling 2-4 points off the required 245
points needed.
“That made her depressed
and she just wanted to give up,” Ms. Dawson said.
But then she saw an article in the Sentinel where Ross An- derson, founder of Men of Vi- sion, was tutoring for the ACT and SAT. “She came to me2or3timesbeforeIfi- nally called Mr. Anderson. We played phone tag, but fi- nally connected.”
In the meantime, Erlicsa got a job through the UPS Call Center. “For a while she got caught up in the job and wasn’t as persistent as she had been. She lost his contact information, but I still had it. We reached out to him again and she was at Van Buren every time he had a tutoring session – Monday,
Tuesday, Saturday, 6 p. m., 7:30 p. m. – whatever time he said.”
With Anderson’s tutor- ing, she still missed the test
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