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\u201cI lived in a really bad neighborhood, so I had a little bookbag and I had a little knife in my bookbag, but it wasn\u2019t for any malicious intent, none of that. It was literally just for protection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was in eighth grade, we got our lockers checked, they found the knife, and that\u2019s 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\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy therapist at the time, Ms. Stephanie, she was just like, \u2018If you all expel her, she\u2019s going to shut down. She didn\u2019t do this on purpose. She didn\u2019t do this to hurt somebody. You expelling her is not going to help her mentally.\u2019 They took no regard for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019t really sit well with me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just think they need to take environmental factors into consideration. I can see if it\u2019s a super suburban neighborhood, nice parents, no crime, you know, privileges. They don\u2019t understand we didn\u2019t even get bus service to my neighborhood because it was too \u2018ghetto.\u2019 It was too \u2018scary.\u2019 We couldn\u2019t 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\u2019t even take those outside factors into consideration, they didn\u2019t take into account there are a lot of shootings down here \u2014 we were on lockdown at the beginning of the year because somebody did a murder-suicide.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t take any of that into consideration, which I do think is unfair because it\u2019s like, I would never hurt somebody, but I do have to protect myself, especially if I\u2019m walking home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring my expulsion hearing, my principal brought the threat up and said this is the ultimate reason why they won\u2019t allow me back in the school district.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom and case manager were really fighting for me. I just remember being in there crying like, \u2018Y'all are not listening. Y'all are not understanding. Y'all are rich. You don\u2019t know how it is to be scared when you walk home. You don\u2019t understand how it is when you gotta walk 15 kids deep, so nobody comes up and tries to snatch you.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was expelled for a full year from Nov. 14, 2014 \u2014 my mother\u2019s birthday \u2014 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 \u2018middle man\u2019 to resolve our arguments, which left me and my sister arguing a lot, too. So my whole house was in shambles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cApril 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\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI went to Camp Joy three weeks out of that summer, and each time I went, I realized the importance of wanting better for yourself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGoing 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really am glad that I got expelled because what if I would have stayed at that horrible school district? I don\u2019t think I would have the same family dynamic, and I don\u2019t think I would be here, to be honest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI could\u2019ve dropped out. I could be in the streets. I could be pregnant. That\u2019s what that neighborhood was. That\u2019s 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\u2019t give us a chance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen some people now that were still out there. They smoke weed. They sell drugs. They\u2019re involved in gangs. They take pictures with guns. I feel like that honestly could have been me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did a complete 180. If I were to meet with my teachers from eighth grade and below, they would be like, \u2018Is 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\u2019t even believe it was me. Like, \u2018You\u2019re in college? You\u2019re a first-year? You\u2019re about to be a second-year?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t college bound, but I\u2019m here now. It\u2019s crazy. It\u2019s really crazy. My teachers always said I had all this potential, but I never really accessed it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was still around there, I like try to imagine, \u2018What if?\u2019 But you can\u2019t imagine the unimaginable.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>

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\n\t\t\t\tGo back to full list<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Khaila Washington, a first-year in social work, is the first in her family to go to college because she said she \u201cdidn\u2019t want to be another statistic\u201d in her community. Growing up in a dangerous neighborhood extended to all areas of her life, including in the classroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4076,"featured_media":596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"

\u201cDuring my expulsion hearing, my principal brought the threat up and said this is the ultimate reason why they won\u2019t allow me back in the school district.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cI went to Camp Joy three weeks out of that summer, and each time I went, I realized the importance of wanting better for yourself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\u201cIf I was still around there, I like try to imagine, \u2018What if?\u2019 But you can\u2019t imagine the unimaginable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"coauthors":[13],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hilton-sp2020"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/files\/2020\/04\/IMG_2851-3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelantern.com\/projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}