When Molly Hill found out that the Montgomery County Literacy Council was holding classes to help students get their high school diplomas, she didn’t waste time signing up.

“I was in public high school for a little bit,” Hill said. “Then, I switched to homeschool because of some home things going on. I ended up stopping all together because I ended up being pregnant and life got in the way of that. Now that I have my life together a little bit, I want to get back on track and finish.”

Hill is one of several students who are taking classes that prepare students for the HiSET (High School Equivalency Test) exams. Classes are held at the basement of the Montgomery County Health Department on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Monday and Wednesday mornings.

“My therapist suggested it,” the 22-year-old Hill said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, I have time now.’”

There are students from other cities such as Owensville, Rolla and St. Clair who would join the classes via Zoom. Students attend a 30-minute online class for math and English on Tuesday nights and a 20-minute program for math on Thursday evenings.

“We have some students through the state program that are online exclusively,” teacher Shawna McKellar said. “So most of our work for the students to do to get ready for the HiSET are online computer programs. They do most of the work on the computers.”

Students are provided with computers for the classes.

“We had a grant that was given to us,” said Alice Whalen, who is the director of adult and education literacy at East Central College. “We had new Dells for the students instead of Chromebooks and new teacher laptops so we can better connect to the internet. They’ll work a little faster because the Chromebooks are pretty slow.”

The classes help students succeed in the HiSET exam that covers language arts, math, science and social studies.

“We target certain things that we know that will be on the test,” said Clinetta Weinrich, a member of the Literacy Council. “We teach it now and teach it again in 6-8 weeks. All of our students are at different levels. We may be teaching something about algebra. But our students might not be quite ready for that yet. They’ll still get exposed to it.”

Tylor Lopez has been taking classes since July. He said he is working on getting a GED so he could become a mechanic.

“It’s pretty good,” Lopez said. “I learned a lot of stuff about my math and reading a little bit.”

Anyone who is interested in taking free classes can contact the East Central College by visiting eastcentral.edu/AEL or by calling 844-322-4235.