LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Skye Burris figured her unexpected pregnancy at 14 meant the end of her life’s dreams.
Finishing middle school and graduating from high school seemed less important than figuring out the looming reality of motherhood.
“I was like, ‘I don’t even care about school. I don’t even want to do nothing in my life,’” she said.
Five years later, Burris is the mother of an energetic 4-year-old and a graduate from the Georgia Chaffee Teenage Parent Program. She will study culinary arts at Jefferson Community and Technical College for free thanks to her Evolve502 scholarship.
“I was basically forced to come to TAPP, but once I got here and made friends, I’ve seen them graduating, the pink cap and gowns, the senior activities, like, I might as well stay here,” said Burris, who has attended TAPP since the eighth grade. “… Since like my ninth-grade year I was like, ‘I want to go to school every day.’”
Skye Burris, second from right, walks during the Georgia Chaffee Teenage Parent Program graduation ceremony (photo provided).
Burris has lofty goals once she earns her associate degree in culinary arts. She wants to run her own restaurant with a unique concept: converting a used school bus into a dine-in eatery.
TAPP has prepared her for life as a restaurateur. Burris has completed projects like building restaurant menus and developing food truck concepts, and the school has also welcomed chefs into their kitchen to help students like her hone their culinary skills.
“She’s killed it every time,” TAPP math teacher Briana Arencibia said of Burris’s cooking acumen with professional guests. “… Not only that, she’s taken a business management class, so she knows more beyond just, ‘I want to be a chef.’ There's a lot of realism that needs to happen, a lot of expectations that kind of go hand-in-hand with schooling.”
Skye Burris in the Georgia Chaffee Teenage Parent Program kitchen (photo provided).
Burris has also shadowed chefs and completed internships during her time at TAPP while also juggling childcare and work at restaurants. Cooking has been her passion since youth, and her favorite dish to cook is steak with mashed potatoes and asparagus.
She likes her steak medium-well and her mashed potatoes loaded with bacon, cheese and sour cream. "A lot of sour cream," she said.
Arencibia often benefited from her pupil’s time in the kitchen. Burris would come to Arencibia’s classroom and offer a tip of when she’d be cooking.
“She always wants to give me a good plate and not the scraps of whatever’s left,” Arencibia said.
Burris’s growth in the kitchen has been noticeable. The pizzas she cooks now are “very different experiences” from the pies she’d serve her freshman year, Arencibia said.
Skye Burris slices a pizza she cooked in the Georgia Chaffee Teenage Parent Program kitchen (photo provided).
Burris’s personal maturity has been striking as well.
Her attitude changed a lot in her five years at TAPP, she said. Instead of immediately jumping into arguments over disagreements, Burris says she now stays levelheaded and listens to concerns of others.
“I had a lot of behavior issues before I got pregnant,” Burris said. “Now it’s just like I’m calm, cool.”
Burris has also found childcare at TAPP’s Child Development Center. She pulled her daughter, Storm, out of class for a few minutes Wednesday afternoon before the lively youngster was ready to head back to her teacher.
Storm has learned the basics of counting, reading and writing at TAPP’s program, Burris said.
The young mother also got to see her daughter daily. They would chat through the window while the children were out for a walk or see each other outside at the playground.
“I’d be telling her hi on the playground,” Burris said. “She won’t talk to me sometimes.”
Burris will get help with housing and childcare through the Family Scholar House while taking her classes at JCTC.
She credited TAPP with changing the trajectory of her life at a time when she didn’t know what motherhood would bring.
Skye Burris's graduation painting.
Burris said she wouldn’t be ready for college without TAPP and would likely live at home with her mother for the foreseeable future.
“Now I’m planning for moving out of my mom’s house, looking for my apartment, planning new things for me and my daughter to live in our own home by ourselves,” Burris said.
Arencibia has taught at TAPP for five years, and she likens Burris to one of her own children.
“It’s remarkable just to see, just to remember what she was like and just the fact that I was one of those people with her the first day that she was here,” Arencibia said. “I think it made such a larger impact on me as I got to watch her walk across the stage.”
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