Khaila Washington

Jasmine Hilton
Thu, 30 Apr 2020 01:45:15 +0000
Hilton-SP2020

Khaila Washington, a first-year in social work, is the first in her family to go to college because she said she “didn’t want to be another statistic” in her community. Growing up in a dangerous neighborhood extended to all areas of her life, including in the classroom.

“I lived in a really bad neighborhood, so I had a little bookbag and I had a little knife in my bookbag, but it wasn’t for any malicious intent, none of that. It was literally just for protection.”

“When I was in eighth grade, we got our lockers checked, they found the knife, and that’s when I got expelled. After I got expelled, the relationship with my mom and my siblings was in turmoil. I was so angry about getting expelled. I went to Facebook, and I made a threat against the school that was completely out of anger. I had no intentions of following through with the threat. I just felt so hurt as a student. They didn’t understand my situation at all and how bad that neighborhood was. Looking back on it, I know it was a huge mistake, but also a huge learning point.”

“My therapist at the time, Ms. Stephanie, she was just like, ‘If you all expel her, she’s going to shut down. She didn’t do this on purpose. She didn’t do this to hurt somebody. You expelling her is not going to help her mentally.’ They took no regard for it.”

“I was in therapy a couple weeks before all of that happened, and then I was also moving, and then I got diagnosed with adjustment disorder, so big changes like that don’t really sit well with me.”

“I just think they need to take environmental factors into consideration. I can see if it’s a super suburban neighborhood, nice parents, no crime, you know, privileges. They don’t understand we didn’t even get bus service to my neighborhood because it was too ‘ghetto.’ It was too ‘scary.’ We couldn’t have deliveries to our neighborhood, like pizza delivery, because they were scared they were going to get robbed. So the fact that I feel like they didn’t even take those outside factors into consideration, they didn’t take into account there are a lot of shootings down here — we were on lockdown at the beginning of the year because somebody did a murder-suicide.”

“They didn’t take any of that into consideration, which I do think is unfair because it’s like, I would never hurt somebody, but I do have to protect myself, especially if I’m walking home.”

“During my expulsion hearing, my principal brought the threat up and said this is the ultimate reason why they won’t allow me back in the school district.”?

“My mom and case manager were really fighting for me. I just remember being in there crying like, ‘Y'all are not listening. Y'all are not understanding. Y'all are rich. You don’t know how it is to be scared when you walk home. You don’t understand how it is when you gotta walk 15 kids deep, so nobody comes up and tries to snatch you.’”

“I was expelled for a full year from Nov. 14, 2014 — my mother’s birthday — to Nov. 14, 2015. The school district at the time said if I completed my therapy and reached all my goals, they would lift my expulsion to April of 2015 instead of November of 2015.”

“I was out of school all of November, all of December and then eventually started online school in January. After my expulsion hearing, I shut down. I stopped socializing with my sister and my mom, who lived with me. Me and my mom argued a lot, and oftentimes it resulted in my sister playing ‘middle man’ to resolve our arguments, which left me and my sister arguing a lot, too. So my whole house was in shambles.”

“It didn’t occur to me just how much pain I was causing my family until my sister told me that I was close to being kicked out the house. That was when I knew I had to turn it around.”

“April came around, and I successfully completed all my goals in therapy, and my school district said I could come back. But I knew that wasn’t the best decision because the people I hung out with were not the best influences. I also had already moved out of the school district into a better neighborhood.”

“After I successfully completed my eighth-grade year online, summer going into my freshman year, I went to an amazing summer camp called Camp Joy. There, I met amazing counselors, amazing friends who were in the same situation as me, where we all had lived in not-so-great neighborhoods, but we all had one goal, which was to get out.”

“I went to Camp Joy three weeks out of that summer, and each time I went, I realized the importance of wanting better for yourself.”

“Going into high school, I had a target on my back due to eighth grade. I knew I had to be on my best behavior or it would be a repeat of everything I had already been through. I held myself to the highest standard I could. I was determined to not get detention, a suspension or an expulsion all four years of high school. I kept my grades up. I surrounded myself with people who had the same goals and aspirations as me.”

“At that point in time, I started thinking bigger and how college was in the near future. I was accepted into The Ohio State University. I knew it was the perfect fit because it was one of the biggest cities in the nation, which, for me, meant opportunities for networking and connecting to people that would be able to get me places.”

“I really am glad that I got expelled because what if I would have stayed at that horrible school district? I don’t think I would have the same family dynamic, and I don’t think I would be here, to be honest.”

“I could’ve dropped out. I could be in the streets. I could be pregnant. That’s what that neighborhood was. That’s what that school district was, Mount Healthy City School District. Teachers say they care, but actions definitely speak louder than words. You did have those teachers that really cared about their students, wanted the best for their students, but then you had other teachers knowing they were in a bad school district, knowing all the kids in there were bad, so they didn’t give us a chance.”

“I’ve seen some people now that were still out there. They smoke weed. They sell drugs. They’re involved in gangs. They take pictures with guns. I feel like that honestly could have been me.”

“I did a complete 180. If I were to meet with my teachers from eighth grade and below, they would be like, ‘Is this the same Khaila I taught? Is this the one that got suspended and expelled and threatened the school? I really believe that they wouldn’t even believe it was me. Like, ‘You’re in college? You’re a first-year? You’re about to be a second-year?’”

“I wasn’t college bound, but I’m here now. It’s crazy. It’s really crazy. My teachers always said I had all this potential, but I never really accessed it.”?

“If I was still around there, I like try to imagine, ‘What if?’ But you can’t imagine the unimaginable.”