In all of the years Shawneeq Pettey-Ford has been administering the HiSET Test, both as a mathematics teacher/program coordinator at Camden Community College and as ABS Program Manager for Hopeworks, she has never once seen anyone get a perfect score on a subtest of the HiSET. That is, until Miles Watson came along.
Miles got a perfect score on the Social Studies subtest of the HiSET—on his first try! He scored a 20 out of 20. “He is so intelligent,” says Shawneeq.
More recently, Miles passed all five subtests and earned his high school diploma. The actual document arrived in time for his birthday.
“Miles' older brother got his diploma with us,” says Shawneeq. Miles came in October 2020, when he was 16. His scores on the TABE (diagnostic) test were so off the charts, Shawneeq thought, “Wow. Miles, we need to register you now.”
She says Miles would have earned his diploma much sooner had there not been issues with his forms of identification. It also took a long time to get signed consent forms from his family. “The pandemic didn’t help, either,” says Shawneeq. In the interim, Miles went through the training and took lots of practice tests.
When Miles was able to take the five subtests of the HiSET—Language Arts, Writing, Mathematics, and Social Studies—he wanted to do more than just “pass.” He wanted to do his best. So on some tests, even though he got a passing score, he would ask Shawneeq if he could take the test again. “I’d tell him, ‘Miles, you passed!,” and he’d say, “Yeah, but I know I can do better.
“That’s Miles!,” says Shawneeq. “I am so excited to see what his future looks like!”
Earlier this month, we had a pop-up visit at our Camden headquarters from a very special guest! Desmond Riley is a Hopeworks alumni from the early 2000’s where we started in a small row home in North Camden. Desmond just happened to be walking down Market Street when he saw our sign on the window […]
We are excited to announce that our web team has developed and launched a new website for the impactful and well-known nonprofit, Philabundance! Philabundance works with over 350 community partners to distribute food throughout nine counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey. Their very simple belief is that no one should go hungry while […]
Talk about impact, opportunity, and paving the way! We want to send a special thank you to the amazing folks at Campbell’s, Brian Roberts, Martin Bally, and the entire Infosecurity team for this kind gesture they have passed along to Lily. During a Listen and Learn event here earlier this month, Brian and Martin announced […]
