Every Student Is Salvageable

From my earliest days as a kindergartener at Beasley Elementary in Mesquite, Texas, it was clear my path through school would be anything but typical.

I wasn’t the child who sat still with hands folded. I wasn’t quiet or compliant. I was curious, restless, and always pushing the limits of the box. Mrs. Johnson’s behavior management system: a Bee Hive with bumble bees labeled with each student’s name - made that clear.

My bee came out of the hive early and often, signaling my first of many trips to the principal’s office.

That pattern stuck. For the next nine years, despite being a consistent A and B student, I spent more time in the hallway, on the steps, in the principal’s office, or in ISS than I did in my classroom.

Lessons in the Struggle

Those experiences even extending to juvenile detention, they shaped me in ways I couldn’t see then. They taught me something I now carry into every campus and every conversation with educators:

Education isn’t about compliance. It’s about understanding.

Students don’t need us to demand silence or perfection. They need us to discern, to adapt, and to remember that behavior is always communication.

Dropping Out and Coming Back

By the time I was a freshman in high school, the weight of it all caught up with me. At 14 years old, I dropped out and left home.

Four years later, I returned home permanently, a a pregnant teen, every expectation that I would fail. But my son, became my reason to fight forward. With my parents’ support, I completed my high school diploma through homeschooling at 19.

Empowered by his birth and anchored by my family, I turned what could have been a dead end into a doorway. I went on to earn both my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Southern Methodist University.

Becoming the Educator I Needed

Those years propelled me into a 28-year career in education. I became a childcare director, then a teacher in Title I schools, then an administrator, district leader, and consultant.

I’ve built systems from the ground up, coached people to success, and sat at tables with some of the most influential leaders in education across the state. But I’ve never forgotten what it felt like to be the kid in the hallway, the one most people thought couldn’t be salvaged.

A Student Who Reminded Me Why

In 2015, a student reminded me exactly why this work matters.

He had just arrived in Texas from the northeast, caught in the middle of a custody battle, carrying the upheaval of everything he once knew. One morning, I watched as he used the tape dispenser from my desk to repair his broken shoe. His wide smile showed me his pride in fixing it. That small act revealed his resourcefulness and resilience, even in the middle of instability.

He often wore an oversized red hoodie and worn-out pants. On my birthday, he handed me a bouquet of wildflowers, roots still dangling from the dirt. They weren’t polished, but they were real, they were authentic - just like him.

Then one November morning, he walked in with his head down, a black beanie pulled low and a hoodie atop his roughly shaved head. It was clear he had been mistreated. My colleagues wanted him to remove the beanie, but I insisted: let him keep it on. That day wasn’t about compliance. It was about comfort.

He reminded me: sometimes the most important thing we can give a student is not correction, but compassion.

What Educators Need to Remember

Stories like his and stories like mine are proof that every student is salvageable.

We don’t always know what battles they’re fighting. We don’t always see the hunger, the bruises, the chaos at home, or the voices in their head telling them they won’t make it. What we do see is the behavior. And too often, we react to the behavior instead of seeking the story underneath it.

When I refused to make him take off that beanie, it wasn’t about breaking a rule. It was about breaking a cycle. It was about telling him, “You are safe here. You matter here. You don’t have to earn compassion.”

That’s the work.

The Charge

Educators, let me remind you of this:

• Compliance will never change a child’s life. Compassion will.

• Content can open doors, but connection will keep them open.

• Every hallway kid, every “frequent flyer” to the principal’s office, every child whose bee comes out of the hive is still salvageable.

My journey from a struggling student to a district and campus leader proves it.

That student with the wildflowers and the hoodie proves it.

Your students prove it every single day.

So here’s the challenge: Will you look beyond the behavior? Will you see the child before you enforce the policy?

Because when you do, you become more than an educator - you become a lifeline.

And that’s exactly the kind of educator our students deserve.

Listen to, A Comeback Story; Every Student is Salvageable podcast episode, here.