“It was one of the biggest changes of my life.
I was born in Columbus, Ohio, and I grew up in a tiny little house near German Village. My dad speaks German, so it was really nice to be around a ton of people with the same culture.
When I was two, my family moved to Michigan, and then a year later, we moved back to Ohio. I lived in the woods near Athens. It’s a small town where there are no streets— everything’s graveled. We even had a horse in our backyard. It wasn’t even ours; it was just left there. While that was really fun because we didn’t have too much to do, it was definitely hard because the closest fast food was like two hours away. I was home-schooled, so I basically just ran around all day and did nothing.
My parents home-schooled me all the way until fifth grade. When I was home-schooled, I’d wake up in the morning and we’d read a few books, probably one history book and then one storybook, and then my mom would give me something to write about in a journal. After that, I’d do a math worksheet or maybe two, and then I’d just get to run around and play or do experiments. My mom would always have stuff lined up, but it was kind of just like I completed it when I wanted to.
In second grade, I moved to Houston, and once I got to fifth grade, my parents tried to put me in Kolter Elementary. It was a big change having all the different classes and actually getting graded on things. I had never really been graded before. I didn’t even know what grades were. So the fact that people were giving me points off because I used the wrong word or something seemed really weird.
In a sense, I was definitely lacking a lot of knowledge when it came to how things worked, [but] not necessarily academic stuff like math because I was really good at math. But I remember when I joined, it was super easy. School itself was easy, but the hard part was like, ‘What is a spelling check? How do you sit at a desk?’ That kind of stuff was hard to grasp.
I ended up dropping out of Kolter halfway through the year because I couldn’t stay on top of things. My mom tried again the next year and put me in Meyerland Middle School, but I was still falling behind. It wasn’t the classes that were hard, it was working with groups, keeping a schedule and not having any free time because I was dancing every day after school.
I started dancing when I was at Meyerland. I’d always seen ballet my whole childhood. When I lived in the woods, we didn’t have a lot of internet, so I would watch these discs my mom had of recorded ballets because she used to be a dancer. That kind of inspired me. When I came to Houston, I was finally able to actually take ballet.
Once I went to Meyerland, I really did not like it there. Because I didn’t feel like I was being pushed academically, I made the switch to Pin Oak.
I really enjoyed my time there because Pin Oak had super advanced classes, and I had teachers who would help me. Coming from being home-schooled, that was really important. The people there were a lot more adaptive to my needs, and it helped prepare me a lot for Bellaire because Bellaire is really big.
One of the main reasons I stayed at Bellaire was because of eMotion and my clubs. I really liked how eMotion was so student organized, and everyone there was so friendly to me and helped me fit in and learn. I’m also part of FCA, Athletes in Action, theater and other clubs, and I’ve really found good communities there [and] friends who help me out and make me feel like I belong.
Coming from being home-schooled was really hard, but I definitely think switching schools and going to Meyerland and then Pin Oak really helped prepare me for loving Bellaire and fitting in here. The clubs are really the best part, and I like how much freedom I have. It almost reminds me a little bit of being home-schooled, when I could choose what I wanted to do.”
