|
|
Amanda Rossmann, The Enquirer
Cincinnati Enquirer
Preteen student will become youngest graduate of Southwest Ohio college
Max Londberg, Cincinnati Enquirer
May 12, 2020
An Ohio student will hold a college degree before becoming a teenager.
Lucius Garrity will graduate this spring with an associate's degree
(and high honors) from Chatfield College. The 12-year-old from the
small city of Hillsboro, Ohio, about an hour east of Cincinnati, will
be the youngest graduate ever from the private liberal arts college
with campuses in Over-the-Rhine and Brown County, where Lucius attended.
His family sacrificed their time to help facilitate his educational
pursuits. The need for their involvement may reflect a scarcity of
high-level course offerings available to many rural students in Ohio.
Lucius has always been precocious. His parents said he scored around a
140 on an IQ test in kindergarten, about 40 points higher than the
national average.
While his elementary school classmates counted cupcakes, Lucius was
tackling advanced division. But he eventually felt untested in school.
So parents William and Sara Garrity decided to turn to home schooling
when Lucius was in first grade at Fairfield Local Schools, a district
in Leesburg with about 900 students.
"Sara kind of backed out of her career path to start home schooling,
and ever since then he has just been moving at lightning speed,"
William Garrity said.
Sara Garrity said teaching her son was challenging.
"It's definitely not something that everyone would probably want to do," she said.
By the age of 11, Lucius had again outgrown, intellectually, the
available curriculum. He enrolled in Chatfield College and began
attending face-to-face classes for the first time in years.
Chatfield provided more than an academic education, Lucius said.
"I wasn't seeing many people because I wasn't socializing at school,
obviously," he said of his days as a home-schooler. "I think going to
(Chatfield), it really helped me meet more people."
His parents shared in the responsibility of driving him to the college
campus, which served as the site of his de facto high school. He
enrolled in August of 2018 and will graduate next month, the same month
he turns 13 years old.
The average age of Chatfield graduates is 29, according to Robert
Elmore, the college's president. He added that, with Chatfield's
7.8-to-1 student-teacher ratio and individual student tutoring, the
college is well-equipped to educate younger students.
Lucius' former public school, Fairfield Local, did not offer any
Advanced Placement courses or gifted/talented programs in 2015,
according to U.S. Department of Education data from that year, the most
recent available.
In fact, only two schools within the five public school districts in
Highland County, where Lucius lives, offered AP classes, according to
the 2015 data.
By contrast, 15 schools within the Cincinnati Public system offered AP classes.
Sara Garrity praised Chatfield for "taking a chance on an 11-year-old
kid who probably they were surprised to see walk in the door."
"It's a great school," Lucius added.
Lucius, who attended Chatfield through Ohio's College Credit Plus
program, received a significant tuition break. He owed just $169 per
credit hour, about $300 less than the standard cost.
He didn't receive any scholarships, however, because he's too young to
even apply to many the family researched, according to his mother.
During this spring semester, Lucius was also enrolled in his first
class at Miami University, where he plans to pursue a bachelor's degree
in computer science in the fall. He earned an A in a marketing class.
In his free time, he enjoys the standard hobbies of a kid his age, such
as playing Minecraft, learning piano and guitar and experimenting with
programming.
He built a robot by 3-D printing its body and outfitting it with radar
so it could detect its surroundings. He's fluent in Python, a
programming language, and wrote 900 lines of code to create it.
He also used a motion detector, alarm clock speaker and a small
computer board to create a door alarm. Each time his door opens, the
Soviet national anthem plays.
"I just thought it was funny," Lucius said.
His father said Lucius has strict rules about his room and entering it is like visiting "a different country."
Lucius pointed to his sense of humor as a trait that debunks misconceptions about him.
"A lot of people think because I'm so far ahead that I'm not a fun
person," he said. "I like to think I'm fairly funny and nice to hang
out with."
Lucius plans to try a new learning tactic in a few months when he sets
out exclusively at Miami: slowing down. He'll stretch out his time
there and hopes to graduate by the age of 16, a proper age, he
believes, to move out of the country in pursuit of further education.
He aspires to enroll at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university that specializes in science, technology and engineering.
"I don't want to be in a different country when I'm 15," he said.
William Garrity praised his son's drive.
"I was nowhere near that when I was 12," he said. "Saying 'proud' doesn't do it justice."
Added Sara Garrity, "It's definitely been a group effort because
everybody's given a little bit to get him to school, but he's done the
work and he should be proud."
|
|
|
|
