No one can stop Kassandra Jean-Marie.
While many students are still figuring out what they want to do, she is already on a path to help others.
The senior at Greater Lawrence Technical School is a determined young woman, and everyone around her seems to feed off of that.
She is already a certified nursing assistant, using a set of skills she learned from her mother.
"Well my mom is a nurse, so she worked there, so when I got my CNA license she asked her job would it be okay if I started there to get experience and I really liked it, so I never left," she said.
She learned her nursing skills in school, but it was her history teacher who nominated her for Class Act.
"I like to invoke questions, questions that are going to get you to think, and she’d come up with these answers and she’d give me these looks you know, it’s like ‘Why is she picking on me?’ Because I knew she’d have something to share," said history teacher Victor Martinez.
Kassandra has been the class co-president, and also volunteers at the pediatric center at Lawrence General Hospital, has organized blood drives, and is an Alzheimer’s care giver. Medicine is in her future.
"I don’t think I ever wanted to be anything else," she said.
Until she becomes a doctor, she said she is happy being a CNA.
"I think it’s really a humble job because it really shows you how much people need help when they get older," she said. "It’s so nice because they show so much gratitude. It’s a very rewarding job."
Kassandra’s mother is proud of her daughter’s hard work.
"When you start from CNAs going up to being a doctor, it really helps because you know everything," Karine Jean-Marie said. "you know about taking care of the patient, everything."
"She’s going to do whatever she wants," Martinez said. "No one’s going to stop her."
(Copyright (c) 2016 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)