Mathews High School cafeteria worker Sarah West Crockett is staying after school these days.

At age 56, Crockett has enrolled in the GED program offered by the Middle Peninsula Regional Adult Continuing Education program (R.A.C.E.) at the school on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. She said she’s working on her GED because of her grandson, Steven Hudgins, a freshman.

"He doesn’t like school," she said. "I told him it means a lot; you need to get your education … I told him I always wanted to know what it feels like to wear a cap and gown. Everybody else has got it. I want it."

Crockett, who grew up at New Point, said she was one of 11 children in her family, and "it was tight for all of us to go to school." She attended New Point School, then went to the old Lee-Jackson and Thomas Hunter Middle School. But she said that, with such a large family, she and two of her siblings had to miss school a lot so they could help out at home, especially during daffodil-picki...