Unlike most teenagers, 17-year-old Brendalynn Farr doesn’t attend a regular high school.

As many young people discover, the “traditional” kind of education wasn’t working out so well for her. She’d decided to drop out of high school and work toward earning her GED when she found the Alternative Learning Center in Waynesville last year.

“You can work at your own pace, and the kids here, they don’t really judge you,” Farr said of her switch to attending school through the ALC. “I came here, and I loved it. I ended up staying here.”

Farr’s new outlook and enthusiasm for her education quickly came through to ALC Program Coordinator Caroline Williamson, which is why Williamson nominated her student for the America’s Promise 2013 Building a Grad Summit in Washington, D.C.

“Brendalynn, of course, ...