Environmental Services employee Antonio Pennix Jr. becomes the first graduate of Administration and Finance’s pilot program, earning his high school diploma from the Goodwill Excel Center.
Photo, from left: Nicole Palmore, Antonio Pennix, Dawn Rhodes, and Denise Meyer
Antonio Pennix Jr. is one of those people who can be hard to define.
He’s an engaging speaker who can motivate anyone. But he confesses that he sometimes has trouble keeping himself motivated.
He’s soft spoken and doesn’t like attention. But he’s unafraid to stand up and make a bold gesture when the spirit moves him.
He’s an exceptional learner who can grasp complex concepts just by watching. But he never earned his high school diploma.
Until now.
On Sept. 19, Pennix joined 50 other Baltimore adult learners in earning his high school diploma from the Goodwill Excel Center, a tuition-free public high school for adults 21 and older. Pennix, a custodial manager for Environmental Services, was the first of five students enrolled as part of a pilot collaboration between the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) Administration and Finance (A&F) Department and the Excel Center.
The graduation ceremony took place at UMB’s SMC Campus Center.
Like every other high school graduation, the day was filled with family members snapping photos, graduates exchanging hugs, and a procession of speakers and speeches trying to define a day that defies definition.
For Pennix, the graduation represented the culmination of a journey that is both singular in its challenges and yet all too common in Charm City.
A Challenging Start
Pennix — a 34-year-old Baltimore native and father of four — describes his childhood as unremarkable.
The youngest of three children, Pennix says his father chose to separate himself from his life as he worked through his own personal challenges. This left Pennix’s mother to raise not only him and his two siblings, but also several of her siblings’ children as well.
It was not an easy task, and Pennix confesses that he and his mother frequently butted heads. Now as a parent himself, Pennix has come to appreciate how challenging raising children can be.
“I’ve been through things with my mother when I was a child that I wasn’t too fond of,” he said. “But now that I’m of age and a parent, I got it. Just thinking about her being a single mother, not only taking care of her own three kids, but her brother’s kids, and a couple of her sister’s kids all under the one roof! You learn as you go by having children, if you get what I’m saying. Her actions speaks louder than words.”
Pennix made it through elementary and middle school as an average student. Initially, his grades weren’t good enough to get him into Carver Vocational Tech, his first choice in high schools. However, as a middle school lacrosse player, Pennix scrimmaged against the Carver team several times, and the Carver coach remembered Pennix. The coach pulled some strings to get Pennix in.
“I played one season,” Pennix said. “Then I got caught up in the streets, so you say. I was starting to be a misfit, starting to get to that age where your mother can’t control you. I’d never been arrested at that point in time, but she tried to get me help.”
Pennix’s mother set him up with a counselor who would come to his house and talk to him.
“I really wasn’t a troubled kid,” Pennix said. “I had a lot of pain built up — a whole lot, a whole, whole lot.”
Despite the call of the streets, Pennix remained in school.
Then in spring 2016, a chance meeting in a local corner store reunited him with an elementary school friend he had played basketball with. Their friendship felt like destiny as the two friends discovered they’d been living a couple of blocks apart. They picked right back up as if they never missed a beat.
Then in June of that year, Pennix’s life was forever changed when his best friend was murdered while seated next to him.
“This is a very important part of my life,” he said quietly.
“It was just one typical night. We were all just sitting outside, just being teenagers. And then gunshots just rang out. I almost got hit once. I know I almost got hit because one bullet hit the brick wall and I felt the brick was shattering behind on me.
“But we got shot at with a revolver. Six shots. The other five shots all hit my friend.”
His friend was taken away in an ambulance and died shortly thereafter.
“So right after that, that’s when school stopped,” he said.
Pennix began to spiral downward.
“I started to be in a bubble by myself, and I started to scare myself with my thoughts and things I wanted to do and stuff like that,” he said. “So I had to preoccupy myself with doing something. That’s when I started working.”
As an escape from pain and confusion, Pennix found an escape in work.
The type of work didn’t matter at first, and his first jobs were in the food service industry. He often held down two full-time positions. Eventually he landed a custodial job working with Harbor Hospital.
Around this time, he and his father had become close. Pennix’s father — Antonio Pennix Sr. — told his son he was proud of him rising above the allure of the streets. At the time, Pennix’s father was battling HIV, which he contracted through drug addiction.
“He had it for at least 10, 11, 12, maybe 13 years,” Pennix said. “He was fighting it. In the midst of me starting my new job, my father watched my daughter for me because I didn’t have a babysitter.”
But on Pennix’s first night in his new position, he got the call that his father had passed away in his sleep.
Shortly thereafter, tragedy struck again as Pennix lost a daughter who was born prematurely. She died in his hands in the hospital.
“And at that point, I thought I was done. I thought I was done. My best friend, my father, my daughter. Things started to go downhill for me from there,” he said.
To try and cope with the unfathomable pain he felt each day, Pennix turned to narcotics.
As his drug use increased, he found himself spiraling downward. He was isolating, losing weight, and stopped taking care of himself. Eventually word of his drug use reached his family members, who confronted him.
“My mother called my sister, and everybody was hurt because a family friend had OD’d off of Percocet and stuff like that,” he said. “So, I said, ‘Enough is enough.’ And right then and there I checked myself into a treatment program. And I completed it.”
After getting clean, Pennix returned to his roots and again threw himself into his work to cope.
In addition to the custodial work, he got hired as a security officer in another hospital. Seeking opportunities to grow professionally, he next began doing armed security. He also studied for, and became, a certified canine handler.
A Chance Opportunity
Sometime in the spring of 2023, Pennix’s sister Terria McClain — an administrative specialist at the University of Maryland School of Nursing — submitted a job application for him with the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) Environmental Services unit.
Pennix admitted that it took him three tries to make the interview, something he has never revealed to his sister. After skipping the first meeting and missing the second, he made the third interview and, to his surprise, was hired on the spot.
With a growing family, Pennix worked in his new position with UMB during the week and continued working security during the weekend.
Six months into his career at UMB, Pennix attended a department town hall. One of the speakers was Nicole Palmore of the Office of Employee and Organizational Success. She was pitching an experimental pilot program in which A&F employees who had not earned their high school diploma could apply to return to school, earn the credits they missed, and graduate with a high school diploma. What made the program special was that those who were accepted could pursue their degree while working.
Palmore said the program was the result of months of work and collaboration.
“In my first year, I was tasked by my boss [Dawn Rhodes, chief business and finance officer and senior vice president] with getting a deeper understanding of what the needs are in Administration & Finance,” Palmore said. “And one of the things that I had identified was the need for a high school diploma program. We had this subset of employees that wouldn’t be able to benefit from tuition remission. Plus, not having a diploma can be a barrier for some jobs within the University. We are guided by our core values, trying to do what’s equitable for our employees.”
Her timing was perfect, as around the same time, the Goodwill Excel High School Diploma Program was preparing to launch in Baltimore. Palmore reached out to the center’s director, Sherry DeFrancisci, and they started talking before the center opened.
“I let her know I wanted to find a way for A&F employees to be able to work a half shift, four days a week, and go to school for the second half of the day, for as long as it took them to complete their high school diploma. She told me no one’s ever done this,” Palmore said.
She asked DeFrancisci if they could guarantee A&F five spots. DeFrancisci confirmed she could, and Palmore began working out details with the appropriate supervisors, directors, and Rhodes.
With the legwork done, Palmore booked time to present the program at one of the town hall meetings. After months of work, she didn’t know what kind of reception the program would get.
“After explaining the program, I told the room, ‘You’re going to have to apply for it. You have to be in good standing with the University. And you need to get a letter of recommendation from your manager. If anyone is interested, you can reach out to me privately.’ I did so because I know some people feel embarrassed or stigmatized because they didn’t have the opportunity to complete high school.”
She recalls, “Antonio stood up at the meeting and expressed his desire to join in front of the room, in front of all his colleagues.”
Pennix vividly recalls the moment.
“It was the morning shift plus the evening shift all in that room,” he said. “I was the only person that stood up amongst that crowd. Stood up, not just raised my hand. I stood up, I raised my hand, and I said, ‘I’m interested in signing up.’ ”
After this proclamation, Pennix quickly started doubting himself. He thought back on his struggles in school, many of which were amplified by peers teasing him.
“When I sat down, I started sweating, like a little panic sweat,” he said. “But I told myself, right then and there, it’s your time. Before then, I was very insecure about telling people that I didn’t complete high school.”
Pennix’s anxiety about the coursework wasn’t entirely unfounded.
The Goodwill program was built with a different model than the traditional GED program. The GED acronym is a shortened form of “Tests of General Educational Development.” Almost all GED programs focus on training students to pass the test rather than mastering the subject matter.
The Excel program, on the other hand, focuses on making students intellectually whole by requiring them to take — and complete — all of the classes they missed. It’s a much more intellectually holistic program, but that means it’s also much more academically rigorous.
Fortunately, the founders understood this.
In designing the Excel program, the Excel Center knew that what they are asking of their students is hard. To fully support them, they tried to make some of the other parts of the students’ lives less difficult. To this end, they offer free on-site child care, free parking, and even free laundry facilities for under-resourced or unhoused individuals.
Palmore applauds their approach and takes it one step further. She wants the students to know there’s no shame in not having completed their journey the first time.
“I tell them the stigma is not on you; it’s the system that’s been letting students down in Baltimore City for decades,” she said. “Our applicants told me how their schools had closed, and no one followed up to make sure they got transferred to another school. They told me about being harmed at school, or about deaths in the family that derailed them. These challenges are amplified because many of these kids were from families that were dealing with not just extreme poverty, but also health issues, resource issues, and taking care of elder relatives and younger siblings.”
Back to School
Palmore says all five slots were filled within days of her presentation (and there’s currently a waiting list for the next cohort).
Of the five students accepted to the first cohort, Pennix needed to earn the fewest credits. As a result, if he could handle the work, he would be the first to complete the program and graduate. The other four would be (and are) on target to graduate in the six months after Pennix.
But going back to school wouldn’t be easy, and Pennix was working two jobs to support his family. He made the decision to step away from the security position and focus exclusively on school and his UMB position.
A typical day for Pennix would include waking up and getting his kids ready for, and dropped off, at school. Then he’d be off to check in with his mother, tend to his dogs, check in with his child’s mother, and fit in any chores like grocery shopping for the family. Classes would begin at 12:45 and run to 3:50. He’d get 70 minutes of free time before beginning his work shift at 5 p.m.
He found the work hard, the days long, but the load to be manageable.
Things were going well for him until he ran into the buzzsaw known as Algebra 2.
He was struggling with a concept in class and asked his teacher for help. In this instance, the teacher responded with a tough love approach and put the onus of understanding back on Pennix.
In that moment, he felt his old insecurities creeping back in and his anger taking over. “I know when my anger started because I’ll get quiet and I’ll start sweating. The teacher said, ‘I cannot stop and just focus on one person. You got to catch up.’ ”
“I took that as very offensive. I said, ‘I’m done.’
“I packed my stuff. I went to my life coach, and I said, ‘Take me out of this class right now.’
“After I left school, I immediately started to feel crazy towards myself.
“So I’m laying down in the bed. I’m pondering. I’m beating myself up about what happened. And out of nowhere, what [the teacher] was trying to explain to me popped in my head.”
Pennix — who had become a Muslim a few years prior — attributed the revelation to God.
“I went back to school the next day and apologized to the teacher. I said, ‘I apologize for embarrassing myself. I apologize if I embarrassed you in front of your class. But I apologize, and if you let me back into your class, I’ll be honored to come back.’
“He said, ‘Come on back in here.’
“I passed his class, and I also received the award for the most improved student in algebra. I got to the point where I was helping other students. The teacher was saying, ‘Go sit over there with Antonio. He knows what he’s doing. He’ll help you.’ ”
Ironically, it was the challenge by the teacher that earned the teacher — David Smith — Pennix’s ultimate respect.
“They push you because they want to see you succeed,” he said. “If they weren’t pushing you, you can tell that they would just be in there for a check. They actually genuinely care about your performance.”
From that point on, Pennix was not to be denied. He walked across the stage on Sept. 19 and accepted his diploma to the roar of the crowd.
Moving Forward
This interview was conducted the day after his graduation. When he was asked about what’s next, Pennix talked about keeping his options open. But he doesn’t want to let his forward momentum go to waste.
“I’m not trying to let that torch burn out right now,” he said. “I’ve been looking. I want to see all the things that I could go to school for free for at UMB. Yesterday, I looked at my first thing that I really would be interested in going back to school for would be social work. And under social work, I was interested in going back into behavior health to work with the youth.”
He added, “To get a young man in my position that I was in when I was a kid, I would be honored to help him.”
For any colleague, friend, or even a stranger who might be considering the program, Pennix has some advice.
“To complete that program, you’ve got to be on a mission. It has to be your time. You can’t go down there because your homeboys and your homegirls are going down there and you just want to be around them. You’ve got to go down there, determined and willing to give it your all. Because if you don’t, you will not succeed.”
Redefining Success
Pennix’s story is both remarkable in its challenges, yet all too common in Baltimore.
It’s estimated that 16.5 percent of adults living in the city are without their high school diploma. The Abell Foundation estimated that before COVID, some 80,000-plus Baltimore adults had stories similar to Pennix’s. For context, that’s about 10,000 people more than M&T Bank Stadium holds when it’s sold out. That’s 80,000-plus individuals starting their adult lives at a significant disadvantage even before any other resource deficiencies are even considered.
Plus, if the estimates about lost learners during the 2020-2021 “COVID years” are even remotely close, this number could be significantly higher in the coming years, even as the population of Baltimore remains static or declines.
Palmore acknowledge that effort and resources are required to make this partnership happen for employees. But she also hopes other local institutions will be able to look at the UMB model and create similar opportunities for their employees.
Clearly, there is a need. Clearly, there is a want. Clearly, a city like Baltimore can use the good news.
As Lisa Rusyniak, Goodwill president and CEO, said during the graduation ceremony, “These graduates have faced obstacles most of us can’t imagine, and yet here they are, proving that it’s never too late for a second chance.”
With the expected graduation of the other four students in his cohort coming up, the pilot iteration of the program will be complete. That will be 5-for-5. And hopefully another five applicants will step forward to be brave, be vulnerable, and do what’s hard to achieve their goals.
The obstacles Pennix has faced — and overcome — pushed him to the brink. But he’s still here. He’s overcome them. And he refuses to let them define who he is or who he will become. Because for Pennix, it’s not the challenges, but the successes, that will ultimately come to define him.
And maybe he’s not so hard to define after all.