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Attending �鶹��Ƶ������ȫ Stark in the fall, Canton teen once questioned future.

Aireanna Tyson didn’t always see college in her future. Growing up in Canton’s inner city, she knew what it was like to feel far from the classroom — where real life could pull your focus away from school, and college felt like something for someone else.

“I wasn’t really going to classes. I wasn’t doing homework,” she said. “It hit me that if I didn’t buckle down, I wouldn’t even graduate.”

That changed when she joined the Rising Scholars program at �鶹��Ƶ������ȫ University at Stark.

Academic Program Coordinator Lester Sanders knows students like Tyson don’t lack potential, they often just lack a path. A McKinley High School graduate himself, Sanders sees supporting Rising Scholars not just as a passion, but as his purpose, helping students turn potential into real opportunity.

Tyson is one of six Rising Scholars students who graduated from McKinley High School’s Early College program in May. These students have earned not just their high school diploma, but an associate degree — something that once seemed out of reach.

In the fall, Tyson begins pre-med studies, majoring in biology, at �鶹��Ƶ������ȫ Stark, with a dream of becoming a pediatrician or working in labor and delivery.

“I never thought I would get this far, ever,” she said.

A program that opens doors

The Rising Scholars program helps first-generation and underrepresented students in Stark County and other �鶹��Ƶ������ȫ Regional Campus communities find a path to college. It offers year-round academic support, college-credit opportunities, mentoring and help with scholarships and financial aid. Students apply in eighth grade, and the program supports them through high school and into college.

“Whether they come from urban or rural areas, the challenges of growing up in poverty are often the same,” Sanders said. “They’re all facing similar struggles — learning how to make responsible, healthy choices and figuring out who they want to be.”

Tyson says Rising Scholars gave her more than academic support, it helped her believe in herself again.

“It teaches you how to be confident wherever you go,” she said.

That confidence helped Tyson shift her mindset. She went from hearing some say she wasn’t good enough to finding mentors — like “Mr. Lester,” as she calls Sanders — who told her she could be great.

“If they said I could be something, then maybe I can,” she said.

A future she couldn’t imagine

The change didn’t just affect Tyson. Her success has become a blueprint for her younger sister, Justice, who is now in sixth grade and attending Canton City’s Early College Middle School.

“When I was in sixth grade, I wasn’t even thinking about college,” Tyson said. “But now she sees me doing it, and she’s like, ‘OK, now I want to do it, too.’ ”

For their mother, Antoinette, the program was a lifeline. “She loves that I joined,” Tyson explained. “She saw what I was going through, and she saw I had someone there who was willing to help me through it.”

A program with purpose

Sanders said students, like Tyson, show what happens when you invest in young people.

“Our goal is to uncover and grow potential that’s already there,” he said. “Aireanna always had the drive — she just needed someone to remind her what was possible. That’s what Rising Scholars is all about.”

Sanders believes placing programs like Rising Scholars in city districts is essential. “These students don’t always have the same opportunities,” he said. “We bring those opportunities to them. We show up, and we stay.”

It’s that steady presence that made all the difference for Tyson. Looking back, she says Rising Scholars helped her become the person she is today.

“If anybody’s thinking about joining the Rising Scholars program, just go for it,” she said. “It’ll take you as far as you want to go. It’ll give you chances you didn’t even know were out there.”

And to those who might overlook the very students the program aims to support?

“We’re not what people expect,” Tyson said. “We can succeed. We just need someone to believe in us — just like Rising Scholars believed in me.”

SUPPORT RISING SCHOLARS

Submitted Photo: Aireanna Tyson is all smiles at her high school graduation in May, pictured with her father, Lamar Broyles. One of six Rising Scholars graduates from McKinley High School’s Early College program, Tyson earned both a diploma and an associate degree.