Where is your Kindergarten Class?

Rodriguez St.

Have you ever looked back and asked yourself, “Where is my elementary class now?” I do. I think about my kindergarten classmates from Radcliff Elementary School on Rodriguez Street. Back then, we were all just kids learning the ABCs, drawing with crayons, eating lunch together. But as we moved through the grades, one by one, the faces started to disappear. Some got labeled early. Others fell behind and were never helped back up. But the real separation didn’t happen until middle school. That’s where the system started drawing the line between who gets pushed forward and who gets left behind.

In middle school, the programs begin. Honors classes. College prep programs. Special field trips. But only for the “good” kids. The ones with high grades, quiet behavior, or the right kind of English. I remember classmates who weren’t even invited to try. I saw kids get brushed off. Ignored. Told without words that they weren’t going anywhere. And by the time high school comes, it’s already decided. The gap is too wide. Most don’t make it. The system quietly pushes some of us out.

Even the few of us who did make it to college  we were not fully prepared. We were pushed to the finish line without ever being trained for the next race. So we got to community college or even a four year school and felt lost. Overwhelmed. Some dropped out early on. Not because they didn’t want it but because no one showed them how to survive it. That’s the truth about schools in low income communities. They don’t just lose kids along the way they fail to prepare the ones who actually make it.

This blog isn’t about blaming teachers because I know many of them cared. It’s about how the whole structure is built to pick us off, slowly. By the time graduation comes, only a small piece of that original class is still there. Not because we weren’t smart, but because we weren’t supported. I write this as a reminder that we were all full of potential. We still are.

 I was one of them, left behind. Soon I will have the honor to say that I finally caught up. 






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