At 19, Masters candidate Keirston Williams on fast track to success

ALBANY — At the tender age of 19, one might think that Keirston Williams would be spending her summer at the beach or hanging out with her friends. Instead, Williams is working full-time as an administrative assistant to Albany Downtown Manager LaToya Cutts, preparing to become a graduate student at Albany State University in the fall.

The Albany High School grad was among the first group of Dougherty County School System students to take advantage of the state’s Move on When Ready program, which allows high school students to finish their high school careers while being dually enrolled at a post-secondary institution.

In many respects, Williams is the Dougherty County School System’s poster child for MOWR.

“I was dually enrolled at Darton State College, which is now Albany State University,” Williams said. “I graduated from Darton in two years. I actually graduated from Darton with an AA degree in History before I graduated from high school. Exactly one year later, I graduated from Albany State with a bachelor’s (degree) in Organizational Leadership and Public Administration.

“This fall I will pursue a Master’s in Public Administration with a Community and Economic Development concentration at Albany State.”

Over the last several years, the DCSS has been pushing its MOWR program to increase student achievement and allow graduates to enter the work force more quickly.

“We’ve been aggressively pushing the Move on When Ready Program for our students over the last four years, specifically because we know it provides increased opportunities and a leg up when compared to those who aren’t in the program,” system Associate Superintendent for Academic Services Ufot Inyang said.

“Now, students can graduate high school with a free associate’s degree or certification from a college or technical school, and that definitely sets them apart when they’re looking for job opportunities or trying to get into advanced degree programs down the road.”

Williams, the daughter of Susie Johnson and Mathis Williams, said she benefited greatly from the MOWR program.

“It taught me discipline and focus when I was 16 or 17 years old,” she said. “You want to play a lot, but you learn to balance that with college. I learned to focus and how to be disciplined. Another challenge is I had to learn how to wean myself from my high school classmates and then integrate into a classroom with older students.

“That was also a challenge because I was no longer with kids my age. And now I’m sitting in a classroom with older kids, and I had to teach myself how to cope in a new learning environment. They were going like, ‘Really? She’s only 16?’ So I got a lot of attention. People were curious how I did it because they wanted that for their kids. So you kinda become like a stepping stone, and everyone wants to get involved.”

As a Public Administration major, Williams said she feels she is in the right place at the right time.

“It’s been awesome because I am actually incorporating what I learned in my bachelor’s study here (with the city of Albany),” she said. “Now I am able to incorporate some of that course work into what I am doing. I am actually applying it in the real world.”

According to DCSS spokesman J.D. Sumner, over the last four years, the school system has tripled the number of students in its the MOWR program. And with the system’s college and career academy opening in August, it is on track to have nearly 1,000 students in MOWR by the end of the year.

Incoming DCSS Superintendent Ken Dyer said he has been impressed with the results of the program.

“Keirston Williams is just one of many of our students who have benefited from MOWR,” Dyer said. “We are extremely optimistic about the future of the program, and we are expecting the number of participants to increase significantly as more people learn about it.”