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LAFAYETTE — Antonio Pulliam dropped out of high school at age 17 after his second attempt to complete his freshman year. It took him another five years – along with two arrests – to decide he needed to finish his high school education.

“It took me getting in trouble to come to this program and leaving drugs alone,” said Pulliam, 22, one of 79 graduates this year of the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center’s GED program.

The program is offered to inmates at the Lafayette Parish Correc­tional Center and to those sentenced to jail diversion programs at the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office Community Corrections Campus.

The campus houses several programs that are alternatives to incarceration, such as day reporting, GPS tracking of offenders and work release.

This year’s 79 graduates of the GED programs are close to double the 40 people who last year earned their diplomas after passing the test through the program, said Carin Wilson, lead teacher of the program at the Community Corrections Campus.

Read more at Louisiana Weekly

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