Ms. Betty, ‘the Beyoncé of night school,’ is about to earn a high school diploma at 69

Betty Williams is always the first student to show up at class, sometimes arriving before the staff at her North Philadelphia high school clock in. She hasn’t missed a day, ever.

Williams is about to earn her high school diploma, and she doesn’t have a minute to waste. Education is her job now, and she takes it very seriously.

“I never thought that I would have this much fun in my old age, going back to school,” said Williams, 69. “It’s just been wonderful for me.”

Williams grew up in North Philadelphia, living in a housing project on Norris Street, and with her grandmother at 18th and Cumberland. She attended Kensington High School, where her grades weren’t bad. She was athletic, playing softball and running track. She dreamed of becoming a doctor.

“But my head wasn’t in it,” Williams said of school. “I messed around, I got pregnant twice.”

She stayed in school after her son was born, when she was 14, but after giving birth to her daughter at age 15, Williams dropped out. She was a sophomore, supposed to graduate in 1972. Instead, she found herself a single mom, with two small children and a series of low-wage jobs — working at a sweater factory, a thrift store, a supermarket, as a butcher, then as a certified nursing assistant.

“I had my kids, and I raised them the best I could,” said Williams. “I went to work, and I had a little help from my mom. I wouldn’t let her take on that responsibility of raising them. I gave them the best lives that I could; I went without a lot of things, but it didn’t matter to me as long as they were taken care of.”

That she never earned a high school diploma was always in the back of Williams’ mind; she tried to earn a GED, but life was busy, and she had to put that coursework aside. But her kids thrived: Her daughter earned a college degree and works for Campbell Soup Co, her son juggles two jobs and is studying to become a lawyer in his 50s — and that’s what mattered to Williams. (”They’re my heroes,” she said, beaming at the mention of her children and five grandchildren.)

A lifetime of hard, physical jobs took its toll on Williams; she had back surgery in 2002, and had to stop working.

Williams always thought she would return to school — when the time was right. So when she saw a story on the news about a senior citizen earning a diploma, she was inspired. Williams called One Bright Ray, an alternative high school that contracts with the Philadelphia School District to offer diplomas to students who have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out.

“I said, ‘Wow, if they can do it, I know I can do it,’” Williams said. “I prayed on it.”

Nearly 4,000 Philadelphia students dropped out of school in the 2022-23 school year, according to district data; many won’t ever earn a diploma. It took Williams almost half a century to take steps to get hers, but once she set foot in the halls of One Bright Ray’s Strawberry Mansion campus, she was all in.

“My first day, I felt like a kid, a little bit,” Williams said. “I said, ‘I don’t remember the hallways being this long. You could lose weight walking the hallways.”

There were worries — in the 1960s, “I had reading, writing and arithmetic,” Williams said. “I don’t know nothing about algebra.”

But she conquered algebra, and chemistry, and biology. Williams credits skilled and understanding teachers. The One Bright Ray staff credit her as the kind of student who set the pace for everyone else, unafraid to ask questions, work hard, try again when she didn’t immediately absorb a new concept. Williams had to take two buses to get to school, and three buses home; she didn’t complain when her back hurt, or when her schedule changed from two days to four days.

“I just kept going,” said Williams.

Jennifer Rodgers, One Bright Ray’s director of evening programs, said she wishes she had hundreds of Ms. Bettys enrolled.

“When I say she’s a complete joy to have as a student, I mean it,” Rodgers said. “She’s brought a brightness to our organization. She made major sacrifices to be here.”

Universally known as “Ms. Betty,” Williams found herself in a unique situation: learning from and with people generally much younger than she is. She didn’t mind. Everyone was respectful, she said, and she learned from everyone, even if the younger students sometimes displayed behaviors she remembers well from her own youth.

“I do my own thing. I do my own walk, just me and God, because they crazy, they all crazy,” Williams said, laughing.

Returning to school at her age meant that Williams needed to get out of her comfort zone at times, not just with traditional academics. But Williams shone.

In art class, “I can’t draw a lick but the drawings that I was doing, my teacher loved them,” she said, marveling.

And then there was physical education class. Despite her back trouble, including persistent sciatica, Williams enjoyed soccer, and volleyball, and basketball. When it was time to do push-ups, she let the other students go first. Then, it was her moment of truth.

Everyone pumped her up. Her teacher kept saying, “One more, Ms. Betty!” And when she finished, the room was triumphant.

“The other students said, ‘I told you she did that! She beat us all.’ I was cracking up,” Williams said.

Because she missed most of the high school experience in her first go-round, Williams relished it this time, up to and including her prom, which she attended in great style, wearing a tuxedo complemented by a rhinestone hairpiece, bedazzled loafers and handbag. She took her daughter, Tasawa Williams, as her date, had a prom send-off, and yes, she was out on the dance floor plenty. (”It was pretty nice music to dance to,” she said.)

“It was phenomenal,” Williams said of the experience. “I was so excited.”

The world has gotten word about Williams with reporters and photographers regularly showing up at One Bright Ray’s East Erie Avenue campus, where Williams is finishing up one final class.

“Ms. Betty is the Beyoncé of night school,” said Rayn Phillips, One Bright Ray’s social worker.

Williams is in the home stretch: Graduation is scheduled for July 28. Her daughter has planned a party, and family will take her out to eat after the ceremony. But the ceremony will be tinged with sadness. Williams knows she’ll be thinking of her mother, Altermease Williams, whom she lost in 2016.

But she’s not stopping.

“Part 2 is coming,” Williams said. She’s headed to Community College of Philadelphia in the fall, buoyed by the successes she had finishing high school.

“It’s just a fulfillment in my life,” said Williams. “It’s something that I should have did, and I didn’t, so I’m doing it now. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can always go back to school.”

Even considering the 50-year gap, Williams said she regrets nothing about her life. She is delighted that her story might inspire others to pursue long-deferred hopes.

That’s classic Ms. Betty, said Phillips, modeling goodness for others.

“I look up to her in ways that she can’t even imagine,” Phillips said. “Ms. Betty reminds me that regardless of where you’re at in life, you can always move forward.”