SAN DIEGO (FOX 5) — “I come from a family where no one had gone to college. I didn’t know how to navigate the whole college system. I went through community college and then through university and I really saw a part of myself in the students I was serving.”
Because of her family story, Lindsay Reese wanted to grow up to become a college professor to help teach and inspire others to reach their educational goals.
Fast forward several years, Reese is now the superintendent of Learn4Life in San Diego, a charter school. She has been a part of touching the lives of more than 40,000 students in San Diego since 2009.
“These students have been through so much and sometimes unfortunately they get labeled as difficult,” Reese said.
Rather than just giving up on them, Reese sees it as an opportunity to come in and help. “What we do is almost like an ICU unit,” Reese said. “We provide intensive care to students that need those special wraparound services. It’s personalized, it’s customized. And to see a student that comes in — and we see many — they’re just not good, they’re not happy, they’re not content, they don’t know where they’re going in their life. They don’t know what their goals are. They’re defeated. And to turn around and graduation is the bright spot. Graduation is so exciting. You see this child that came in maybe one way and is leaving with confidence and a purpose.”
They leave with the tools they need to build a life for themselves and their families — most of them being the first in their family to do so.
“We want to be the trampoline under the crack that bounces them back up and gets them out of the crack,” Reese said. Nothing more for her than rewarding than to watch them on their graduation day, surrounded by their family and friends, holding their heads high, and proud they did it.
“When kids are successful, the whole entire community is successful,” Reese said. “So anything that I can do in legislative work or advocacy work to really where my heart and my passion is.”
(via @fox5sandiego – https://fox5sandiego.com/news/remarkable-women/remarkable-women-lindsay-reese-changes-lives-through-personalized-education/)