By CHRIS BABB | For the Arkadelphia Promise
Sara Hart walked across the red carpet on the floor of the Duke Wells Center to receive her diploma as a part of the Arkadelphia High School graduating class of 2011 – the first class to be involved in the Arkadelphia Promise Scholarship program.
Two years later, Kristin Conzel walked across that same carpet and received her AHS diploma, also ready to utilize the financial assistance of the then 2-year-old scholarship program for AHS graduates.
Over a decade later, both of those now have a different perspective when it comes to AHS graduation. Not only as alumni, but also as teachers at AHS – now Mrs. Sara Adams and Mrs. Kristin Cloninger – who are watching their current students prepare to benefit from the same scholarship program the two of them did when in their students’ shoes.
Adams and Cloninger are two of around 10 current teachers in the Arkadelphia Public School District who benefitted from the Arkadelphia Promise scholarship program and have now returned to APSD to teach the next generation of Badgers.
Both see the Arkadelphia Promise from a different perspective now as young adults than they did when they sat in the Wells Center as graduating seniors.
“It completely changes the whole perspective (as an adult),” Adams said. “As a teenager you think ‘Ok, great. I have this scholarship and get to go to college’, but I never really understood what that meant…until I went and got my Master’s degree and had to pay for it. To me, it speaks volumes to the gratitude that I have for these programs that are in place.”
Cloninger agreed that time changes perspective and both hope that current students see the value in the scholarship program.
“I really relied on the Promise more than other people because I didn’t have many of the outside scholarships that some students had. It gave me more financial freedom.” — Kristin Cloninger, Promise scholarship recipient and now educator
“When I was in high school, I didn’t understand the value of what I was given,” Cloninger said. “It’s not free. Somebody had to give up something in order for me to receive this. Now that I’m an adult and have to pay for my own things, I appreciate it that much more. Someone had to work hard to put this into place. Some may think that they’re just going to college for free, but they don’t think about the fact that somebody is paying for you to go to college.”
Provided by a grant from the Ross Foundation and Southern Bancorp, the Arkadelphia Promise scholarship program has been helping fund college tuition to AHS graduates over the last 13 years, with Adams and her fellow graduates of the AHS class of 2011 being the first recipients. Over the 13 years of the program, the Promise has paid around $6.5 million for AHS graduates to attend trade schools, two-year institutions and four-year institutions across the United States.
The Arkadelphia Promise is one of only two Promise programs in the state of Arkansas and is one of only a few of the Promise programs across the nation that allows students to take dollars from the Promise scholarship out of state. In addition to most universities in the state of Arkansas, Arkadelphia High School graduates have received assistance from the Arkadelphia Promise to attend universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Baylor, the University of Chicago, the University of Tennessee, Ole Miss, the University of Missouri and Oxford.
The Arkadelphia Promise is not just for those who plan to attend college after graduation. The Promise has also helped students attain electrician and welding licenses and diesel truck driving certifications.
Eligibility to receive the Arkadelphia Promise scholarship is tied to a student being qualified to receive the Arkansas Challenge Scholarship, sometimes referred to the “Lottery Scholarship.” The Arkansas Challenge helps graduates of Arkansas high schools with financial assistance as well, but the Arkadelphia Promise adds to that total for AHS graduates – sometimes with more money than the Challenge. The Promise now contributes a maximum of $15,000 over the course of a college career for AHS students while the maximum that student will get from the Challenge is $14,000.
Arkadelphia Promise Director Jason Jones thinks the Promise has not only positively impacted the number of students who further their education after high school, but it has also helped keep those AHS graduates in college, as illustrated by the retention rate.
“The college-going rate for AHS students has hovered around 70% since the beginning of our program and the freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is just over 77% over the life of our program,” said Jones. “Both of these numbers are unusually high numbers compared to state and national averages.”
Cloninger believes the accessibility of the scholarship for any student who qualifies for the Challenge is a big plus.
“I was not a good test-taker and that’s back when the ACT was a really big deal and all scholarships were dependent upon your ACT score,” said Cloninger. “I really relied on the Promise more than other people because I didn’t have many of the outside scholarships that some students had. It gave me a lot more financial freedom, because either my parents would have been paying for it or I would have been paying for it.”
Now, Adams and Cloninger walk the halls of Arkadelphia High School as teachers, seeing themselves in some of the students and hoping that they can give back to the community that supported them when they were in high school and still does to this day. That support is one reason they returned to Arkadelphia to teach. Adams is now in her eighth year at AHS and was the 2023-24 AHS Teacher of the Year.
“We had no idea how blessed we were to have programs like the Promise to help us achieve or academic success,” said Adams. “I stay here because I have this loyal bond and this sentiment because it’s my own high school, but I also stay here because we have a lot to offer.”
Cloninger sees the value of community in Arkadelphia as well and believes that it’s a huge part in the success of its students.
“In some other schools, the community aspect is not quite there like it is in Arkadelphia,” said Cloninger. “It’s just different. There are so many businesses that are backing our students, just like the people who back the Promise. They really buy in to what we do here and buy into our students. If a student needs something, it’s going to happen here.”
The Arkadelphia Promise held its annual Signing Day for the AHS graduating class on Wednesday afternoon, followed by the annual senior walk-out through the halls of AHS lined by fellow students, families and friends. Commencement ceremonies for the 2024 graduating class will be held Saturday, May 18, at 10:00 am at the Duke Wells Center on the campus of Henderson State University.
The Arkadelphia Promise will welcome a new class of scholarship recipients when they walk across the red carpet and receive their diplomas. They’ll join some of their teachers like Adams and Cloninger as AHS alumni and beneficiaries of the support of community partners like the Ross Foundation and Southern Bancorp.
And who knows what the future will hold. Although they have no idea right now, they might find themselves on a similar path to that of Adams and Cloninger 10 or 15 years from now.
“I knew that I was going to college and I was going to get a degree, but I originally went to Henderson for a business and finance degree,” said Adams. “I ended up minoring in business but got my degree in Psychology. That opened the door to a whole new world. I ended up seeing a job at AHS thought maybe I could get my foot in the door. Since I walked through the door and began teaching – especially in Special Education – I knew this what is it and this would be my forever job.”
Cloninger learned that you never say never.
“I go back to when Mrs. Hunter (former AHS teacher Carolyn Hunter) told me, ‘Kristin, you’re going to be a teacher.’ I was like, ‘Mrs. Hunter, No I’m not.’ Now I’m teaching in her classroom. It could come full circle for some of these students, too. Just seeing them walk across the stage, I see the potential they have and that they’ll meet one day and we will get to have had some part in that.”