TALLAHASSEE, FLA — As high school graduation rates are projected to decline, Florida’s capital has found a unique way to give former students a path to higher education.
The Tallahassee Engaged in Meaningful Productivity for Opportunities (TEMPO) program, founded in 2017, is aimed at providing individuals aged 16-24 who may not have graduated from high school with the means to earn a GED and a connection to work opportunities around the Tallahassee area with the aid of partnered organizations and agencies.
Kimball Thomas, former principal of Rickards High School, realized that instead of pushing these students towards traditional educational pathways, there needed to be a way to re-engage them within their community.
After leaving his work as a principal, he realized how he could connect these students with new opportunities.
“When I became involved with the city, I realized there's a population of kids out there on our streets who are high school dropouts who are subject to crime, drugs, and living in poverty. We need some type of initiative to re-engage these kids,” said Thomas.
Graduation rates are a priority for a school district. The more students who graduate successfully from a high school program, the more likely they are to succeed outside of the K-12 system in place.
The Leon County School District, which houses Tallahassee schools, has a graduation rate of 87.9%, only about 4% below the Florida average. However, what happens to the other 12% who don’t graduate from Tallahassee high schools annually?
Seeing students disappear from the community without graduating from high school is what prompted Thomas to create a program for students who may not have graduated from traditional high schools.
Thomas shared that the program began with a graduating class of 12 GED recipients in June of 2018 and has since created opportunities for students to earn technical degrees and work with local fire and police departments.
Through collaborations with employers in Tallahassee’s local community, the program has provided students and alumni with work opportunities.
“We got kids in underground utilities and public infrastructure; we've had kids in electric and gas. Almost every department has had a TEMPO kid that they've given an opportunity to,” said Thomas.
TEMPO doesn’t just wait for students to join its cohorts. Thomas shares that the majority of students who join each year come from on-the-ground recruiting, even sharing that sometimes it comes down to finding them “in their backyards.”
After recruiting students, the program works to connect each participant to a team of city employees that guides them throughout the next steps of the program.
“We have our case managers who help these kids through action planning and having a goal. Case managers are really putting in the day-to-day work to make this happen with the program,” said Thomas.
Thomas believes that the goal of the program isn’t just to connect students with these opportunities years after dropping out, but to scout them out before they make the next step.
“We have worked with the school district more on these kids who are on the cusp of dropping out of school, and they don't go one to two or three years before we find them to have that kind of partnership and expand that narrative, so that kids who are really struggling and look like they're not going to graduate on time can make an even smoother transition into the City of Tallahassee’s TEMPO program,” said Thomas.
This year, the program reached its largest milestone, with over 160 graduates, including over 40 who earned technical certificates from Lively Technical College, Tallahassee State College, and Florida Health Science Consulting.
But the program goes far beyond just giving these students degrees, according to Thomas. 4,200 students have since engaged with the program, and the city reports that none of its participants have been convicted of a crime since their participation. For Thomas, the program is defined through support from the local community.
“We've had unanimous city commission reports and support since it started. So you know, with that phenomenon going on, and that kind of engagement happening for people to keep them away from crime and to give them hope and opportunity, how could the community not support it?” said Thomas.
Through the program’s success, a STOP-GAP poverty initiative was launched in 2020 to allow the relatives of students or alumni from the program who also did not graduate with their high school diplomas.
This expansion has given untraditional students outside of the 16-24 age bracket the opportunity to receive their GED. Thomas shares that watching the STOP-GAP initiative start and seeing families receive their diplomas together has been an incomparable experience as a former principal.
“In last year's group was one of my former students. I was their principal in a high school year 30 years ago, [they] came back into this program, and I ended up finally giving that kid his high school diploma,” said Thomas. “Can you imagine that this kid dropped out when I was his principal 30 years ago?”
According to U.S. Census data, about 93.7% of adults aged 25 and above are high school graduates, only around three percent above the state average of 89.9%
As the program continues to expand, Thomas hopes it won't stop at creating the STOP-GAP initiative. His next goal is to open a community re-engagement center for students and alumni, and with the program’s growth thus far, this goal doesn’t seem too distant.
“I would say right now the next step is to look at a re-engagement center one day to look at having a place that these kids can call their own, and a place where they can meet and talk, and people can come by and rally behind them, and have events,” said Thomas.
Gabriela Quintero is an incoming freshman at Barnard College of Columbia University, pursuing her B.A. in Political Science and English. Interested in politics, migration, policy, and culture, she hopes to pursue a career in political and cultural journalism.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."