From September 12, 2014

"I just want to be a nurse."  

These were the words that stuck with me from a former student that called me yesterday afternoon.  This former student of mine is someone that I have helped several times in the past.  When she called me Thursday afternoon I was excited at first to see her name pop up on my phone.  She is currently in her last year in nursing school at Pitt Community College.  She had offers for scholarships at Meredith and Barton, but chose PCC because of her family's financial situation.  At PCC she could obtain her nursing degree faster and start doing the job that she has always dreamed of. She even received a scholarship from the Pitt Community College Foundation after their president saw her on TV while she was in high school and was very impressed by her ability to speak with a reporter. This summer she was able to save up enough money to pay for tuition to go full time on her own and finish her degree. In May she would be an RN. 

This is where the story changes. You see, she has a problem. She, like many students in our area, is an undocumented immigrant. Her parents brought her to our country when she was a very small child. She worked hard in school and was a model student. She got her Nursing Assistant license at night while she was in high school and was so excited about being that much closer to her dream. She went through the legal hoops of gaining a deferred action status that allows her to stay in the US and work legally. Today PCC called her to notify her that she could not go to clinicals because they do not think she can be licensed as a nurse.  They advised her not to go to class tomorrow morning and to let them know when she wanted to formally withdraw so that they could try to get her a refund for the semester. Her heart was broken. "I just want to be a nurse," she said.

Even as I write this I don't know whether I should feel enraged or if I want to cry for her. Her story is all too common, and no matter how any of us may feel about immigration policy in our country it is hard to feel good about a child being disenfranchised after so much hard work. The reality is that many students, especially students that live in poverty face a similar disenfranchisement every day despite their legal status as a citizen.  Poverty and broken homes can be equally as bad.  These students come to school and stare at a glass ceiling.  We talk about college and working hard to get there, and many want to believe that, but they know that it just might not be a real achievement because of the "other factors" in their lives.  Let's face it, scholarships usually go to the best and the brightest (and I have no problem with that) and rarely go the ones that grow from a level 2 to a 4 over several years in high school. 

These kids pull at your heart. They cause you to do things like calling the president of a college or the nursing board after 5:00 and demanding to speak to someone that may still be there. But that's what we do.  Teaching these students means more than getting them to know what general surrendered at Appomattox or what the parts of a cell do. It means helping them become good human beings; nurses, mechanics, maybe even teachers.  If you know a kid like this, work with them and fight for them. Who knows, one day we all might just need a good nurse to help us.