At Next Step in West Oakland, adults catch up on earning high school diplomas 67%
By Ashley McBride62%
7/20/2026, 10:17:38 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Indoctrination, Negativity Bias, and Halo Effect, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 20.1% saturation with 129 hits. Analysis detected 1,038 faulty-reasoning hits from 642 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 60.8% and a BS Rank of 67% (7,234 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 67.00% of the article peer group.
In a modest Victorian on a corner lot in West Oakland, a school tucked in a residential neighborhood is quietly changing lives.
Inside Next Step Learning Center, the classrooms are abuzz with tutors and students studying from note cards and work packets.
One pair is dissecting sentence structure, while at another table, exponents get demystified.
But this is not a traditional school — the students are all adults, and the teachers are mostly volunteers.
For more than 30 years, Next Step Learning Center has helped hundreds of adults in West Oakland and beyond earn high school diplomas, GED certificates, workforce certifications, and other life skills.
This year, 121 people earned a high school diploma or GED, which will open doors for them to higher education and better jobs.
It’s the school’s largest graduating class yet.
Students come from all walks of life, with many having overcome homelessness, addictions, incarceration, domestic violence, and other personal traumas.
Students come in a few times a week for sessions and are matched with either a volunteer tutor or a certified teacher.
Once they’ve earned a high school diploma or GED, students can work with the college transition coordinator to enroll in college.
There are no big group classes at Next Step; all students work one-on-one with Peggy Presley, the programs director, to determine the credits they need and plot out their plan to get there.
Next Step Learning Center partners with Opportunity Academy, an Alameda County school with multiple locations in the East Bay, to confer the diplomas.
But more than a certificate or a diploma, the school helps build students’ confidence in themselves.
Rob Palmer has volunteered as a math and science tutor at Next Step Learning Center for four years.
One of the most rewarding aspects of the work for him is seeing his students make progress and master something they had struggled with.
“Helping somebody discover that knowledge and skills that maybe they weren’t confident that they had, and learn that new thing, is a good feeling,” Palmer told The Oaklandside.
“A lot of the education is not about the specific content; it’s about self-confidence.”
A graduation ceremony that “is indeed a big deal”
On a bright and sunny July afternoon, graduates and their families packed the parking lot of Sacred Heart Catholic Church for the celebration.
Claudio Bernardino enrolled at Next Step Learning Center this year after being released from prison in December, after serving 20 years for a wrongful conviction, Bernardino said.
His dream before prison was to become an engineer.
When he was released, his first goal was to get a high school diploma.
“It is a sad reality that we live in a country where it’s easier to pick up a gun than it is to get an education,” Bernardino said to the crowd.
“To my fellow students, be proud of how far you have come.
There will be moments ahead that will test your confidence, but remember that you have already overcome obstacles you once thought impossible.”
As Bandabaila addressed the crowd as one of the student speakers, she called her daughter up to the stage to hold a photo of another son, Jonathan Bandabaila.
Jonathan went missing in Oakland seven years ago at age 19.
She spoke about the sacrifices she and all her peers had made to get to this moment.
“Some people may say we are just getting our high school diplomas and it’s not a big deal,” she said.
“I am here to tell you that indeed it is a big deal.
Do not let anyone diminish your accomplishments.
We have done a wonderful thing for ourselves: We have laid a path for our future that we should be proud of, and no one can take that away from us.”
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2speakers27%attributed speech467writer words
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92%flagged-word coverageClaudio Bernardino
115 attributed words66% of attributed speech81% writer coverage
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