Iris Mitchell joined the Milagro House GED classroom in August 2019, making it her third attempt at earning her GED in the past few years. Despite her motivation, life had gotten in the way in her previous attempts, but she was determined that her third time was going to be a charm. Iris has great strength in writing, and that was the first test that she passed back in 2017. When she entered the class in 2019, she had four more tests to take. As she got closer to passing all of the tests, we were worried that she wouldn’t have enough HiSET points to graduate (total of 45 is needed), so she re-took her writing test three times to gain more points. She made it a goal to earn at least a three on her essay (2 is a passing score), and she accomplished that goal in November 2019. With one more test to pass, she received her passing Reading test score during our tutor holiday celebration, making our celebration all the sweeter. Iris was a joyful student. She was always eager to learn, happy to see her tutors and a true motivator of other students. Milagro House wishes her the best in her future endeavors. 

Here is Iris’s story in her own words:

What happened in your life that you weren’t able to graduate from high school? 

Growing up for me was never easy; my childhood was so different from others. I saw things as a child that I should’ve have seen when I was that young, and as I got older, I had no choice but to grow up. The childhood that I should have been living, like going to parks with my friends, going skating, bowling, was something I never experienced. I finished my elementary and middle school days and some of my high school days, but it had just gotten to be too much for me to handle. I always thought of high school as a zoo, a bunch of animals just running loose with absolutely no control, but that’s because I struggle with anxiety also.