YUL BLACK Yul Black is making the most of a second chance to complete his high school education.

After leaving Blacksburg High last fall for personal reasons, Black enrolled in the Cherokee County adult education program intent on earning his diploma. A high school diploma is one of the final steps necessary before the former Blacksburg High football player enlists in the Navy this summer to train for a future engineering career.

“I have made a lot of mistakes in the past,” Black said. “I have wanted to prove I am not the same person I was by doing as well as I can in school. I went to adult education so I could upgrade my skills and become successful.”

Black took a major step towards fulfilling his education ambitions recently. He became the first Cherokee County student to earn a platinum level national career readiness certificate on Work Keys.

Introduced in 1992, Work Keys is a series of 12 tests developed by the ACT testing company to provide employers with a standard way for identifying and testing the skills workers need for specific jobs.

Local residents could initially only earn a gold, silver or bronze certificate based on their Work Keys scores. Gold was the highest certificate available nationally until the ACT added a platinum level in 2009 to help workers prepare for more advanced technical jobs.

The most common Work Keys tests are Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics and Locating Information. Black came within three points of a perfect score.

The Work Keys database contains more than 16,000 job profiles.

Platinum Level indicates a worker has scored at least a Level 6 on each of the three assessments and has the necessary skills for 99 percent of the jobs in the database.

“I was looking for gold. I was very shocked when I found out I got a platinum Work Keys certificate,”

Black said. “I plan to go receive my job classification from the U.S. Navy once I receive my high school diploma. I think Work Keys will help show I have the skills to be successful in whatever engineering area I go into.”

A small percentage of workers are expected to earn a platinum level certificate on the national Work Keys test.

“Achieving scores of 6 or higher on the three Work Keys tests is very difficult,” Cherokee County adult education director Lisa Hannon said. “We are very proud of Yul for his accomplishment.”