she's going to class now?

By Yareli A

This story is about Leslie Olivar, a 11th grader at Yerba Buena High School, and how she had people help her overcome her struggles in a low moment in her life. Being a student throughout was very difficult and it still is. For example, in 11th grade, Leslie Olivar struggled going to class and having motivation in school.

Getting rid of bad habits is a hard thing to do, especially for a teenager in this generation. Getting rid of bad habits doesn’t happen overnight. If you surround yourself with people or things that trigger those bad habits, you won't make any progress. Leslie would struggle with turning in work and asking for help. At some point, Leslie would overstress herself so assignments were left until there was motivation to be done.

Olivar learned that with a better mindset and better surroundings, she was able to pay more attention in school and go to all her classes and to be consistent with her education such as turning work in on time and being present to understand the subjects.

As one of Olivar's friends, I've seen her grow and become such a good soul and caring person. Olivar and I were ditching buddies last year. If we didn’t want to go to a class, we would text each other and meet up. We would always meet up in the quad and walk to the union and if Buzz would kick us out, we would walk around the whole school or sit in the bathroom. Olivar and I missed a month of our 4th period last semester. We would also leave school at times and when we got caught by Buzz, we would go get food or we would go to Starbucks. But this year, with the help of her teacher Ms. Ferris and her family, she learned how to change her ways. Like 11th grader Leslie Olivar said, “My family and Ms. Ferris have been my inspirations.”

One of the questions I asked Olivar was “what’s something you want to work on?”

She replied with “Something I want to work on is turning in my work.”

One of the ways she was able to start turning in her work was creating better communication with her teachers and learning how to self advocate. The way she built the relationships with the teachers was talking to them and explaining what was going on. Olivar then said, “I overcame the struggle by asking for extra help and for my teachers to be patient with me.”

Olivar and her teachers created goals for her and they kept pushing her, and they still do push her so she can keep up with the goals they made. She likes to help people grow and change their ways just like she did and one of the ways she did that was by joining the Link Crew. I asked Olivar, “Do you see yourself helping people grow?”

She replied with “Yes, that’s why I joined Link Crew.”

Link Crew is one of the classes that has helped Olivar stay on task, meaning she can’t ditch any classes or she gets dropped from Link Crew. She has to maintain good grades and she has to learn how to be a leader for the students she gets assigned to help so they can have an easier school year. Olivar's story shows that change is going to be hard at first and it’s not going to happen overnight but with the right help and the right mindset, anything is possible. Setting goals for yourself is also beneficial because it makes you aware that you have something to work and improve on.