A season of learning

Angelique Flores

Four years ago, Diana Rojas-Banes knew little English.

She had just arrived in Huntington Beach from Costa Rica and not

speaking or reading English kept the 21-year-old from doing the basics

such as taking the driving test, grocery shopping and using an ATM

machine.

Having to rely on her husband for almost everything, Rojas-Banes felt

a loss of independence and as a result, a loss of self-confidence.

“It was just hard and kind of intimidating sometimes,” she remembered.

“I got shy.”

Now fluent in English, she is studying nursing at Golden West College.

All of her prior schooling came from Huntington Beach Adult School, which

will be awarding the exemplary student with a Lifelong Learner Award

today.

The adult school, which served more than 14,000 students last year, is

celebrating its 30th anniversary today during California Adult Education

Week.

“Everything I have is because of that school,” Rojas-Banes said.

Early on, she had expressed a desire learn English, get her general

equivalency diploma, go to college and enter into the medical field as

her father did. At her husband’s prompting, Rojas-Banes began by taking

English as a Second Language classes two years ago.

“I wanted her to go out and accomplish that dream and mission and the

school seemed to be a great place to start,” her husband Matt Banes said.

She’s been doing just that. In addition to the ESL and GED programs,

she took computer classes and in December finished medical assisting

classes.

“I’ve been through the whole school,” Rojas-Banes jokes, who is

studying for the medical assistant certification test in June. After

which, she plans to start working as a medical assistant while she

continues in the nursing program at Golden West. She hopes to go into

surgical nursing or prenatal nursing.

“My family and Diana’s family are extremely proud and in awe of what

Diana has accomplished. I couldn’t ask for a better partner,” Banes said.

But the ambitious young woman is not through at the adult school. She

plans to take more English classes at night.

“The opportunities are endless for a student who is as motivated as

she is,” Vice Principal Kerry Clitheroe said.

The adult school offers vocational classes, high school diploma and

GED testing, health and safety, older adult programs, parent education,

medical assisting and computer classes. The most popular program is the

ESL program.

Almost half the students are from Huntington Beach, but they come from

all over the county and as far as San Bernadino and Riverside. Students

range in age from 16 to more than 100-years-old.

Also receiving a Lifelong Learner Award is Donald Dill. Dill 66, takes

advantage of the volunteer training classes in the older adult program.

Before retiring, he served on various nonprofit boards that benefited

youth. Now he wants to help the kids directly and the classes help him do

so.

The Huntington Beach man volunteers every Tuesday morning in the

fifth-grade classes at Circle View Elementary, helping the children with

math, reading, spelling and English.

“You get prestige working on the boards, but you get fulfillment

working with the kids,” Dill said.