Sonoma Valley Adult School & Community Education

Angela Willson is an exceptional student in our Adult School Diploma and GED Class at Sonoma Valley Adult School.  In addition to studying in our school, she attends related classes at Santa Rosa Junior College, and works full-time as an event planner at The Lodge in Sonoma.  After completing our program, she will enroll in college classes more directly related to realizing her planned career in public service as a youth counselor.  The superlative quality of her work in preparation for an adult school diploma has given us a model of excellence for other students to emulate.  This gifted young woman deserves recognition for her accomplishments and resilient determination.

Although Angela has performed extraordinarily and prodigiously with her work for a diploma, she recently shifted to our GED program.  Her difficult decision to do so required a paradigm adjustment in favor of a higher goal.  A good deal of her driving force toward success in our program has been to focus on earning her diploma-a goal dear to her with both real-world clout and emotional symbolism.  Even as a most successful student, her progress toward completing all the required credits would yet take longer than a year in our program, and so delay her career goals.  She realized that passing the GED exam would allow her to advance in college programs and aim more expeditiously towards her desired profession.  The shift to GED primed her to take advantage of a fuller range of our instruction at Sonoma Valley Adult School.

Angela's studies in diploma subjects, her observations of life experiences, and her own native intelligence have facilitated her passing, with high scores, all of our practice GED tests but math.  Her mathematical development had all but ended before high school.  With remarkable focus, she has undertaken math study and exercises and so mastered the first half of our GED math preparation materials with great success.  She expects to take the official GED exam this spring.  We are confident that she will do well. In the fall, she will be able to begin classes at SRJC directed toward her dream of becoming a youth counselor.

Angela Willson has demonstrated outstanding ability and versatility in our program. Other students are benefiting now from her excellent example.  As she furthers her goal of becoming a youth counselor, others in the community will prosper.  It is a great pleasure to nominate her as Sonoma Valley Adult School's Diploma/GED Student of the Year.