It's what I need to do

Abreanna doesn't want to be a lawyer. She will be a lawyer.

"She's determined," said her classroom teacher, Carrie Pankowski.

She didn't have that determination when she arrived at Southeastern Education Center in March after getting involved in a fight at her former school.

"I was kind of down a bad side," Abreanna remembers. "The best thing was for me to get out of that school."

She was more focused on her social life than learning, and her grade point average had fallen to 0.3.

She was defiant and "very determined to do what she wanted to do as opposed to what she needed to do," Pankowski said. "She's completely changed."

By spring, Abreanna's GPA rose to 3.7 and she would earn her completion certificate allowing her to move on to high school.

"I see that my teachers care more than my teachers in my old school," she said. They were there for her if she needed help, didn't get mad when she asked questions gave her the attention she needed.

Now Abreanna is focused on her grades and "trying to be something."

"She stays away from trouble instead of going to look for it," Pankowski said. She's also helpful to other students. "The anger is gone."

"Now I'm away from trouble, and it feels nice," Abreanna said.

"This school taught me a lesson that I probably would not have learned," she said. "It's not what I want to do. It's what I need to do."

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