By Kristin J. Johnson

If you don't believe that a community college education makes a difference, go talk to Jennie Hernandez Hanks. Of course, you may have difficulty getting in touch with her. The successful author of A Little Secret for Dealing with Teens (Health Communications International, $8.95) spends her time giving parenting seminars, giving book signings, and writing her next book, A Little Secret for Dealing with Children.

Five years ago, she could not have envisioned this bright future. Her sixteen-year marriage had just ended, leaving her to raise seven children, including two preschoolers and three teenagers, all on her own. Jennie had married right out of high school, and had no college education or job training. Her former husband chose to become self-unemployed and gave her no financial support. She was forced to go on welfare, but she did not intend to stay on government assistance forever. She read the statistics, and she knew that her children had three strikes against them: they were part Hispanic, they were being raised by a single parent, and they were growing up on welfare. They were statistically more likely to use drugs, drop out of high school, become pregnant, or end up in jail. But what could she do to change this grim future?

For a start, Jennie moved her family from California to Idaho, where she enrolled in the College of Applied Technology at Idaho State University. She specialized in Management Technology with an emphasis on Human Resources, and worked towards an Associate of Applied Technology degree while struggling to run a household and deal with the demands her children placed on her. As she writes in her book, "I had no choice but to go back to school full time, even though I knew that the demands on my time and energy would be enormous. In addition to commuting to classes and doing schoolwork, I did all the household and parenting tasks."

This desperate situation would later become the inspiration for Jennie's Little Secret, and her business management classes would provide the groundwork for her innovative solution.

Practical Instruction, Personal Service

In the meantime, Jennie applied herself with dedication to her studies. The high-quality, business-oriented instruction she received at the college helped her to quickly adapt and to learn practical job skills in a short time.

"They focused on the skills you'd need in the job market," she said. "There were a lot of simulations of real life and on the job situations. [The instruction] was really good and the instructors were really knowledgeable."

In addition, the teachers at the College of Applied Technology did their best to accommodate Jennie as she juggled her classes and her responsibilities at home.

"The teachers were understanding if I had a problem with one of my own kids and they let me work around that," she said. She added that the community college atmosphere "seems a little more personal in a way so it can probably better meet the needs of a parent in that situation."

She believes that the community college environment is so flexible because it attracts such a varied student population. "It caters to all ages, not just out of high school. I think it's becoming a little more diversified than it used to be."

The environment was so diverse that she found fellow students who were sympathetic to her predicament. She formed a study group with two other divorced parents in her classes, and the study group quickly became a support group that helped her cope with the constant pressures.

Armed with these tools and with the programs the school offered to re-entering students, Jennie made the most of the community college experience. After being a full-time mom for so many years, she experienced, for the first time, the novelty of being a student and a parent at the same time.

"It was kind of different because I was doing homework alongside my children," she said. "I enjoyed learning new things after having a break for several years."

A Learning Experience for Everyone

The business management courses taught Jennie more than her instructors could have expected. Her children were experiencing their own difficulties adjusting to life with one parent in the house who was now a student. They still expected their mother to do everything she had done before: cook, clean, help them with their own homework, take them where they needed to go, and solve all of their problems. Meanwhile, she had to commute 40 miles each way, study her lessons, and still be there when her children needed her.

Seeking a solution, Jennie began to apply the principles from her management courses to her relationships with her children.

"These classes were focused on results and that's what I needed from my family. A lot of the principles worked in a business environment or even a home environment," she said.

The principles that Jennie used were basic principles of business management: motivating employees, treating people equitably, and getting everyone to work as a team. Jennie needed her children to shoulder some of the responsibility at home so that she could concentrate on her studies, and later, the training jobs she held after she graduated in 1997. The principles helped her achieve results when she was pressed for time and resources.

"In a business, you have to make optimal use of time and resources, and I had to do that when I was going to school," she said.

She did so by focusing on equitable exchanges with her children, for example, asking them to help out around the house or take care of the younger children so that she could later make a special dinner or help them with their homework. After Jennie graduated, she continued this practice of finding out what her children wanted most and then helping them to achieve it by requiring them to do what they needed to do. Her children gradually accepted responsibility, and discovered to their amazement that their home functioned better than it had before. Not only that, the children took charge of their lives.

Today, her oldest son Paul is a history major at Princeton University, while her oldest daughter, who was runner-up in the county Junior Miss pageant, graduated with high honors from high school and has made the Dean's List with a 4.0 GPA at the College of the Desert in Palm Desert, close to Bermuda Dunes, where Jennie and her family live. Her youngest children are in the Gifted and Talented Education program. Jennie's "little secret" and her commitment to education helped her children apply themselves to their own studies.

Author and Educator

Not only did the children's lives change, but Jennie's life also changed, more dramatically than she could have foreseen. Encouraged by her success, she felt compelled to share it with other parents. While she worked at various customer service and training jobs, notably a position at the prestigious La Quinta Resort and Club after her family moved to La Quinta, California, she organized parenting classes based on her new method. Her friends encouraged her to write her formula down, and in May 2000, parents everywhere read about her unique approach to parenting in her first book. Jennie was well positioned to be an author and educator because of the instruction she received at the College of Applied Technology.

"I was given a really good foundation with good principles and to be able to use those in all these different contexts. Because being a stay-at-home mom, I didn't know about the world of business, and [the college] taught me to open doors I never would have otherwise," she said.

These doors have taken Jennie to the other side of the desk. In March and April 2000, she will teach two seminars at the College of the Desert. She will teach a parenting seminar called "A Little Secret for Dealing with Children," based on her newest project. And she will teach a course on "Motivating Employees" with Kurt Hanks, who she married in 1998. Kurt, an experienced instructor and author of more than 30 business books, created all of the graphics for Jennie's book and is currently designing her Web site, jenniehanks.com, which will be launched this year.

Jennie relishes the prospect of teaching community college students and giving them the same quality of instruction that helped her in her quest for success.

"I guess if there was value in the education I received, now I can share it with other people, teaching some of the very things I learned back then," she said.