COLUMBUS, Ohio—What a difference a few months can make for 19-year-old Jihad Daugherty.

• Nationally, one student drops out of school every 26 seconds
• In May of 2019, nearly 15,000 students enrolled in a dropout prevention and recovery program around the state of Ohio
• Recovery schools, like YouthBuild Columbus, provide students with hands-on learning and experience

Over the last several months, he and others from YouthBuild Columbus stripped a house down and slowly started to put the pieces back together. 

He says watching builders put up homes in his own neighborhood made him want to become a carpenter.

"I was instantly hooked," said Daugherty.

Now, he's well on his way to becoming one.

He recently graduated from YouthBuild Columbus Community School at the top of his class. 

"​I actually graduated Valedictorian," said Daugherty.

Daugherty remembers how much he enjoyed his time in school and how he's using those skills now to build a house for someone in need. 

​"It was fun in the actual lab and stuff like that, but actually putting it to good use and applying it in the real world on an actual real house that someone's gonna one day live in, that's like really, really cool,” Daugherty said.

But it wasn’t always that way.  In fact, if you would have talked to him a couple of years ago, he was headed down a different path after switching from one school to another. 

"I just kind of fell off. And my grades started slipping and I got kind of lazy and stuff like that and I eventually ended up having to withdraw from the school," said Daugherty.

Daugherty would join a host of others, all with different challenges, yet facing the same dilemma—what to do now that he wasn't in school. 

Nationally, one student drops out every 26 seconds.

In May of this year, nearly 15,000 students enrolled in a dropout prevention and recovery program around the state of Ohio.

"Our students just come to us needing hope and needing somebody to really see them and hear them because they've been in a place where that hasn't worked in multiple facets. So, coming to us is kind of like the last hope they have," said Chris Gullacy-Worrel, VP of development and advocacy for Oakmont Education.​

While not everyone chooses to go back, the choice was simple for Jihad Daugherty—enroll in YouthBuild Columbus, a dropout prevention and recovery school. 

Here, Adminstrator Emerin Hilts says they help 16-to 21-year-old's who are on the verge or have dropped out of school.

Students work at their own pace, earn credits needed to graduate and get a high school diploma. They're placed in IT, healthcare, and construction-based apprenticeships, which pay well.   

"That gives them a little extra boost in not having to sit in a classroom and do things. They learn hands on," said Hilts.

And it's the hands-on experience that Dr. Jerry Farley says makes the difference.

"We see our students in career tech that show up more frequently. Higher attendance, higher scores in math and in reading, because it is more relevant," said Farley, VP of career technical education for Oakmont Education.

The connection between what they are learning and how that applies directly to their career paths is key.

Recent graduate ​Dashawna Wooden used to miss class regularly, but when she came to YouthBuild, she started showing up more; and that's when things changed. 

"I was about my work first," said Wooden.

She says the hands-on experience, smaller class sizes and being able to work at her own pace helped her to get through it. 

"Once I completed things, it made me feel happy," Wooden said.

Happy that she could finally move into the field of phlebotomy and start the journey of becoming a medical technician. 

As she and Jihad Daugherty continue to piece together their new lives, they aim to keep growing in their new path, since their future is clearer.

And now that they've overcome so much to get here, much lies ahead—work, college, life.