School was great in the beginning, I loved elementary school, the entire six years of elementary school! When it was time to go to 7th grade at the big middle school, that is when my life changed.

I was a terrible student. Let's start there—it wasn't that I wasn't smart; more that I was bored. School was boring. School was no longer fun, we didn't really have anything to look forward to. It was 10 months of torture for me. I stopped going as much as I could. I would hide in my room next to my bed, between the wall and my bed so no one could find me. I missed about 35 days of school every year. I was smart enough to go at least two or three days so I could pass all the tests. We didn't have attendance rules back in the 80's. Those rules didn't come until I was a senior. At the end of my senior year, the school board created a rule that stated you could only miss three days per quarter. Thank God, I made it to the end of the year and graduated. Because school was not great for me, I think my parents and my siblings just assumed I was dumb. Or as they liked to call me; the creative type.

Fast forward past the failed attempt at a four-year traditional college (lasted one year). In 1991 my mother found a small art college, I successfully completed the program but I just did not like school, I went but I missed a lot. I graduated in 1991 and worked the whole time I was in college. Later, I decided to go back to school and I went to the smaller campus in the suburbs, I did OK. During a quarter at that small campus, I decided to travel abroad for a semester. It was a program with a sister college in England.

I went, it changed my life. My parents were shocked, the year was 1994. I loved university in England. It was very laid back, lots of freedom and no tests, just an end of term paper. I had a hard time getting to classes, I was one of the poorer students. There wasn't money to eat out or party like the other students. And, I was a little older than them. I was 23, they were 19. Needless to say, I loved it, loved traveling, made great friends and continually went back to see them.

I would come home, work temp jobs and go back to England. I stayed for free with all the friends I made, and they took me traveling. I have been all over the world and it was glorious. Upon one return from overseas, I went to a temp job interview. It was for an administrative assistant at a large charter school in Cincinnati. The principal looked at my resume and all the art classes and design classes I had taken and my schooling in the arts in England, and asked me to be his art teacher. I agreed to do it. I was not a teacher, I hated school, but thought—I could do this.

I started in the fall of 2001 and at first I was terrible. I was teaching as I was taught and the inner city youth just didn't connect to me. Then, I started teaching what I know. How to take things and change them – jeans to skirts, sewing, fashion, tile, candles, melting bottles. To say I was a hit is an understatement. I loved it! They loved it! But, the heartbreaking part of teaching these 'at risk' youth was that they couldn't read. AT ALL! I couldn't understand it, who failed them. Why couldn't they read basic directions or simple sentences. They couldn't write a story or extended response. Math was a little better, but most high schoolers were functioning 4 to 5 grades below their grade level.

I continued to work in charter schools as an art teacher and as an intervention specialist. My connection to students allowed me to teach them how to succeed in the classroom. Using modifications and accommodations, reading books that are abridged or at their grade level.

I took a corporate job (oh that was the most painful four years of my life) and I worked hard at working full time, getting a Bachelor's Degree. I left the corporate world and for 17 months, I went to an accelerated program and got a Master's Degree in multicultural studies and Interventions. In the last month of my Master's, I also started a PhD program. I completed that program and I have still to write my Dissertation.

When something is interesting to you, or becomes a passion, the drive and the grit propels you to success. I worked hard; I contracted as an IS around the city. I learned curriculum programs, how to write IEP's and ETRs. I became an amazing intervention specialist. I began to teach others how to run a special education program in each of the schools I was interim in. I have now been an IS for more than 12 years and I have taught hundreds of children to read and to add and subtract with automaticity. I also learned how to work with students and teach them social and emotional skills and how to identify what their body needs in 'the moment' when something is upsetting or creates anxiety.

My next journey begins now. I have applied to be a Jon Peterson provider in the State of Ohio. I will be able to work with students who are homeschooled or need specialized instruction outside of school. Jon Peterson allows students to choose alternative schools or providers for students with exceptionalities. It has always been my dream to create a micro school for students like myself, who just didn't fit in traditional schools. Somewhere that is much more laid back, is not rigorous, and allows students to feel successful despite learning difficulties. Celebrating milestones instead of feeling humiliated by test scores. A small school that really does level the playing field for all.