Contract Based Education student clicks with science

C.J. Gillam admits he messed up. In his middle school years he was defiant, didn’t follow the rules, hung with the wrong crowd and smoked marijuana. But now Gillam, 18, is back on track and will graduate this year from Contract Based Education, a West Valley alternative high school.

Gillam said he was got in so much trouble in middle school that the high school called him and said he would not be welcome there. He ended up at Contract Based Education, but still wasn’t really into school. “I kind of screwed off for the first couple of years,” he said.

He picked up an arrest for possession of marijuana along the way. He wasn’t working and wasn’t doing well in school. “I kept doing the same thing over and over again,” he said. “I just woke up, smoked and went back to bed.”

Then something simply clicked. Gillam wasn’t going anywhere, wasn’t accomplishing anything. “One day it was just, no, I can’t do this anymore,” he said. Gillam said he is no longer on drugs. “I quit last June 27,” he said. “It was life changing for me.”

He ditched the bad crowd and started working harder in school. “This year I put my head in the game,” he said. He signed up for eight classes at a time, anxious to get finished. “I was just determined to get it done.”

Gillam said he loves science and the excitement of new discoveries. He dreams of being a physics professor someday and working in a research lab. It’s the world of the unknown that pulls him in. “One day I learned about subatomic particles,” he said. “It was really interesting.”

It’s not every student that gets that excited about subatomic particles. “I’ve always been a deep thinker,” he said. “I think it’s the cosmic weirdness that gets to me.”

After he graduates Gillam plans to get a job and work. He hopes to start attending Eastern Washington University in the winter quarter. “I went for a college visit a couple months ago and just loved it,” he said.

And perhaps in a few years, with a degree under his belt and a research lab at his fingertips, you can call him Charles.