Academy

There are people I know who aren’t going to like this at all. Oh well, it’s my life and my opinion.
I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home. The founder of my church’s education system specified that the schools, primary, secondary and college were to be free for the students and to be paid for out of the church budget and by student labor. This lasted less than 50 years after she died.
My parents believed in this church and the education it had to offer. They worked, saved and sacrificed to send their children through that system, at least for as much of their education as they could. My older sisters went to public high school to give myself and my younger sister a chance at the better education potential in this private system.
In my era, a child needed 18 hours of credits to graduate high school. I had that many by the time I was finished with the 10th grade. Knowing the situation my parents were in, I had decided to go to public school to finish out my high school until the principal of one of our ‘Academies’ came to talk with us at our home.
He told us that I could dual-enroll in the Academy’s Sr. High school and in the local university and graduate high school and be well on my way through college at the same time. When we mentioned the money situation, he assured us that if I would agree to work for the school, that my tuition would be completely covered and that the only thing my parents would have to worry about was sending me a very little spending money occasionally. This would afford me to continue in this system and to get done with college sooner as well, which I thought was great because I intended at the time to pursue an MD in psychiatry. I had, in fact, already read all of the psychiatry text books in the public library as well as general medicine and every book I could find on the history of medicine and surgery.
With his assurance that my tuition would be covered by my working there, I agreed and enrolled in Academy, traveling the 450 miles to the place in early June after my 10th grade graduation. Moving into the boy’s dormitory and going to work in the grounds department of the school for a whopping 48 cents per hour, the student minimum wage at the time.
Everything seemed fine and I went through the 11th grade and my attendant college courses with no real problems, working through the summers and holidays as I could. We built an addition to the cafeteria, a parking lot and various other jobs as they came along.
Also the school used us to rebuild and restore certain old houses, this gave them additional income at the time as well as teaching the worker-students about the building trades.
In midterm of my Senior year I received a letter from the Southwestern School of Medicine that I had been pre-accepted for their premed program starting in the fall semester. I was elated. I shared the news with everyone. It seemed that my education was on-track and I was going to be able to embark on the career path I had dreamed of since I was 11 years old.
When school reconvened after spring-break of my senior year, the same principal called me into his office. He told me that unless my parents could come up with $2,000 (this is closer to $20,000 in today’s dollars) to pay up my tuition that I wouldn’t be able to graduate and that my transcripts from both high school and the college would be frozen. I was dumbstruck. I asked what about the agreement that I work for the school and that my labor would pay my tuition? He said that my student wage had paid a little toward my tuition, enough to keep me enrolled, but that the account balance had to be paid in full before I would be allowed to graduate. He gave me the rest of that week to contact my parents and come up with a solution.
I went back to my dorm and really thought it all over, called my parents and talked with them about the situation and my dad said that there was no way they could come up with the money the school wanted in the time specified. My dad and I both had questions about what had come of the money I had earned through almost 2 years of working for the school and had never seen a penny of my pay. I had been told several times that my pay was being put into my tuition and that all was well, so had my dad when he’d inquired about it.
At the end of the week I went back to the principal and talked with him and the school business manager and determined that the school and the system had basically lied to my family and I. That they were going to hold my education hostage for money that I felt they were not due. The principal told me at the time that I quit that I was making a huge mistake and that if I pursued this course that I would never amount to anything. I responded that I would return to the school for graduation and have $500 in my pocket and that he, the school, and their messed up system would never see another dime from me.
So in a time when you had to have 18 hours of high school credit, I quit school ¾ of the way through my senior year and with 24 credits already done, got my G.E.D. at a local junior college and went to work. I got a job that week, saved my money, bought a used car and in 2 months returned to the school, watched my class graduate then took them to a local pizza place to celebrate. That was the last time I ever saw most of them. Although now, 35 years later, a lot of us are back in touch through a currently popular social networking site.
I never did get a degree in Psychiatry. My life took a different turn. I joined the Navy that year to get the GI Bill in order to afford college, ended up married before my enlistment was done and raised a family. In a way, the principal was right, within the framework of that church, I never did amount to anything for them because I would never submit to them in any capacity ever again.
As to never amounting to anything at all? Tell that to my children who all know how much their dad loves them. Tell it to my wife who died in my arms at the age of 40 and who trusted me to raise our child in her absence. Tell it to everyone in my lifetime whom I have touched with kindness and understanding. I will tell you this now Mr. Principal, sir. I have amounted to something you never could have understood. I grew into a man who has gone on with his life regardless of you or your petty little system.©TexasFred 07/24/2010