LAKE COUNTY — Everybody deserves a second chance. Some people deserve a sixth. Just ask 27-year-old Lake County native Valerie Plevney, who recently received a master”s degree in social work despite having been expelled from five area high schools as a troubled teen.
Throughout high school, she exhibited behavioral problems, coupled with addiction to drugs and alcohol, which ultimately led to her dismissal from most county high schools. “Actually none of the high schools would take me,” Plevney said. “Finally, this hippie guy, Bill MacDougall, said, ?Well, I”ll take her.” And so, by the grace of him reaching out I actually went to Carl? High School and graduated.”
Though Plevney makes no excuses for her adolescent indiscretions, she does acknowledge she was raised in a less-than-positive home environment. “I was just mad; angry at the world for different reasons. I grew up in a really low socio-economic background. So my parents didn”t have anything. I didn”t have anything,” she said.
With her father in jail and her mother struggling with problems of her own, merely having a high school diploma did not guarantee Plevney”s success. With her younger brother left in her care, she realized something had to give. “I had a two-month-old baby, my little brother, who didn”t have anyone to take care of him,” Plevney said. “My dad was going to prison, my stepmom was in jail. My real mom was not doing good so I had to take care of him. There were so many ethical things inside of me that I knew weren”t right.”
Still, Plevney had not considered going to college and it wasn”t until a serendipitous encounter with two Yuba College faculty members, Pamela Bordisso and Sissa Nelson Harris, that Plevney began her arduous path toward redemption.
Hanging out at the Clearlake Walmart one afternoon, Plevney wandered aimlessly down to the nearby campus of Yuba College. “I just walked over there one day and I saw Sissa and Pamela. They said, ?Would you like to go to school?” and I thought, ?I don”t know.” I had never given it any thought. And they kind of walked me through the process. It just started with them asking me if I wanted to go to college. Nobody had ever asked me that before,” Plevney said.
Once she decided to enroll at Yuba, Plevney realized she was still not completely prepared for college-level courses. “Even though I graduated high school, I had done a lot of things that didn”t put my mind in a very good position for learning,” Plevney said. “I tested way under college level. My testing was so low that I started in GED classes and worked my way up. It was a struggle, but it was really nice to have consistent peer mentors and counselors and people to look up to, because I had never had that before.”
Plevney credits the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOP&S), a state-funded program designed to provide resources such as financial assistance and educational services geared toward disadvantaged students, for giving her the tools necessary for thriving in college. According to Harris, who spent years working with students through the EOP&S program, “I think it”s that mentoring component that is so critical. That somebody really takes an interest in you. You have somebody with whom you have a personal relationship with that just has some faith in you. That”s what I saw in EOP&S for 20 years.”
That faith instilled by the guidance of faculty like Harris and Bordisso, allowed Plevney to thrive. And thrive she did, eventually graduating as valedictorian from California State University, Sacramento and a bachelor”s degree in social work (BSW). She then went on to complete her master”s in the same field and now works as a social worker in Sacramento. She hopes to one day open a youth center that is culturally relevant to minorities; a service she feels would have helped her maintain focus as a teen.
As the mother of two young daughters, Plevney realizes the importance of encouragement as it pertains to the path her daughters will take. “I don”t know what they are going to do. I want them to love themselves and love their lives,” she said. “They are on campus with me all the time. They know mommy goes to college. They know daddy goes to college. They know that they”re going to go to college. It”s never been ?If you go” it”s more like ?When you go.”” This change in thought happened in the relatively short period of a single generation and was only possible through the determination of Plevney and the willingness of a few to believe in her.
