AAUW Humboldt awards laptops to continuation school graduates

AAUW-Humboldt put new laptops into the hands of two Humboldt County graduates whose paths to higher education were shaped by detours, family responsibilities and perseverance. The branch named Katlynn Finch of East High in Fortuna and Leila Ruth Baird of Eureka Adult School as this year’s notebook-computer award recipients, recognizing students who reached graduation through continuation-school settings rather than the standard college-track route.

Finch, a graduating senior at East High, planned to attend College of the Redwoods in the fall and study psychology, marine biology and possibly drama. Her interests also reached beyond academics, including drawing, sewing and beading, a combination that marked her as a student building a future that could move between science, the arts and community college coursework.

Baird’s route was more directly tied to Humboldt County’s health care pipeline. She was preparing to study toward becoming a Licensed Vocational Nurse at College of the Redwoods after already completing CNA and EMT training. Her education had been delayed until her children were grown, and she had navigated personal and family illnesses along the way, experience that has shaped the empathy she will carry into patient care.

AAUW-Humboldt has offered the continuation-school award for about 40 years. The branch says the recognition began with dictionaries and later shifted to notebook computers as student needs changed. School personnel select the recipient, and when possible a local AAUW representative presents the award at graduation.

The award fits a broader pattern in Humboldt County, where continuation schools often serve students whose lives have not followed a straight academic line. East High, the only continuation high school in the Fortuna Union High School District, opened in 1969. School materials describe it as a middle college high school on the College of the Redwoods campus, founded in 2005, where students complete an A-G aligned high school program while earning transferable college credit.

College of the Redwoods also plays a central role in that pathway beyond high school. Its Adult and Community Education program offers free classes and programs across Humboldt and Del Norte counties, and its CNA program is a one-semester course that prepares students for California State Certification. For graduates like Baird, those local programs form a ladder from adult education to health care training and, eventually, to licensed work.

AAUW-Humboldt’s notebook awards are part of a larger mission that includes re-entry scholarships for Cal Poly Humboldt upper-division and graduate women who have had at least a five-year interruption in college-level education. The national organization says AAUW has advanced gender equity through education and advocacy for more than 140 years, and the branch continues to translate that mission into local support for students whose routes to college are often longer, later and more complicated than the traditional one.