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[JINGLE]

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Text, OTAN - Outreach and Technical Assistance Network

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[UPBEAT MUSIC]

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Text, Adult Education Students. California Adult Education Students Succeed 2015.

Jacqueline Duncan, Bakersfield Adult School, C A E S S 2015 Honoree.

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JACQUELINE DUNCAN: Well, when I was 13, I became a drug addict. [Jacqueline Duncan, CAESS 2015 Honoree] And everything just changed. I just was totally focused on drugs and using drugs, being around people that were using drugs. I felt more comfortable around them.

DAVID DUNCAN:

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Text, David L. Duncan, Father

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I believe she got in with the wrong crowd, influenced by her peers. [David L. Duncan]

JACQUELINE DUNCAN: 11th grade came around and I just dropped out completely. I wouldn't go to school. I refused to go. When I would tell my parents that I was going to school, I wouldn't go. And eventually, I just never went back.

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Text, Jane Duncan, Mother

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JANE DUNCAN: Jackie's recovery was a very long process. [Jane Duncan, Mother] We put her in, multiple, facilities.

JACQUELINE DUNCAN: I had already accepted the fact that I was never going to get my high school diploma, I was never going to go back to school.

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Jackie sits with her parents at a table in a park

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But when I came out here, I went to the residential. And after the residential, I went to a sober living.

JANE DUNCAN: There was one facility where we could start to see a bit of a change in her.

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Jackie types on a keyboard

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She started going for her education again.

JACQUELINE DUNCAN: It was a motivation for me to get my life together, to start going back to school, to get a job, to better myself.

JANE DUNCAN: Her instructor gave her that one-on-one time, which made a difference. So Jackie then could see that she mattered. So it gave her the ability to continue with her recovery so she could stay focused.

JACQUELINE DUNCAN: I felt like I wasn't going to be able to succeed.

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A woman stands next to Jackie, pointing at the computer screen

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But I pushed past that and I signed up just to get in the door. And once I did that, it all just fell together. I started coming every week and doing what I needed to do, and things just got a lot better.

DAVID DUNCAN: The positive things that I saw with Jackie when she started back in school was that she had a self-worth, a goal to strive for.

BRIDGET AMBLE:

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Text, Bridget Amble, Independent Study-Transition Specialist, Bakersfield Adult School

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[Bridget Amble, Independent Study-Transition Specialist, Bakersfield Adult School] She would try her hardest to get the best grades that she could. It wasn't just, OK, I'll settle for this. It was I'm going to push myself as hard as I can, even when it's not always comfortable or wasn't as comfortable as she probably would have wanted it to be. But she persevered.

JACQUELINE DUNCAN: So I signed up for the GED classes to prepare me for it. And a couple of weeks in, I decided I want more, I want to say that I got my high school diploma. Something just changed in me where I wanted to do everything right.

BRIDGET AMBLE: And so to watch Jackie's story become so much more positive-- and every time I saw her, it was, hey, Mrs. Amble, I got a job and hey, Mrs. Amble, it's been this long since I've been sober. And I just was so happy.

JACQUELINE DUNCAN: I just kept pushing myself. I knew that I had to. I had never pushed myself before. So I felt like now is the time to push myself to do what I wanted to do, to do what I needed to do. Going back to my childhood, I felt like I wasn't good enough. And coming to the Adult School, I felt like I was completing something in my life, like I was going somewhere. I felt this courage that I never had before.

JANE DUNCAN: We all make mistakes. What's important is the next step that you take. Learn from the mistake you made and go in a different direction. And Jackie now knows she can go in any direction she wants for her life.

JACQUELINE DUNCAN: Just sign up, get your foot in the door. Make it a priority. Make it a commitment. When you have that commitment, you feel like you might have to go. But it's not that you have to go, you get to go. Some people don't get to come to an adult school.

DAVID DUNCAN: When I found out that they had asked Jackie to speak at her graduation, I was grinning from ear to ear. Because as a father who had seen her at her lowest point, I would have never have guessed that she could have reached the point that she was at.

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A picture of David standing with Jackie, wearing a graduation cap and gown, and a picture of Jackie with other graduates sitting on a stage

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And it made me awfully proud.

BRIDGET AMBLE: I just wanted her to get the recognition that she deserved for fighting so hard to receive her high school diploma, to become a college student, to become a trusted and valued employee. I just felt like she deserved this recognition.

JACQUELINE DUNCAN: In the end, it was the greatest experience of my life. I love the Bakersfield Adult School. I love coming to this school. It's an amazing experience.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

(DESCRIPTION)
Jackie and Bridget stand together outside the school, laughing and smiling.

Text, Special Thanks to: Bakersfield Adult School. Producer: Blair Roy. Director: Douglas Rennie. Produced by OTAN - WWW dot OTAN dot U S, 2015