New York City Senior Overcomes Pandemic Setbacks to Graduate 2024

Originally published in Chalkbeat on June 21, 2024
By Alex Zimmerman

Ashanty is a senior at Urban Assembly School for Applied Mathematics and Science, a CollegeBound Initiative (CBI) partner school. Chalkbeat reporter Alex Zimmerman caught up with Ashanty during the CBI College Decision Day celebrations.

Photo: Ashanty with her global history teacher Travis Taylor. She credits his global history class for launching her interest in education and peer mentorship.

She resolved to throw herself into the school community rather than retreat from it.

As Ashanty’s confidence grew, she forged deeper bonds with her teachers, too. With the principal’s blessing, Ashanty spent her advisory periods in [Mr. Travis] Taylor’s classroom, often going over material one-on-one with students who were behind and co-teaching a few lessons. In one instance, Ashanty worked with a boy who struggled to show up to class.

“He was Dominican, and I sat him down and really gave him that Dominican mother talk,” explained Ashanty, who moved to New York from the Dominican Republic almost a decade ago. She went over the material with him but also offered a pep talk about why he needed to pass the class. “You have to get it together,” she told the boy. “¿Qué tú estás haciendo?”

Ashanty enjoyed mentoring other students so much that she dreams of becoming a teacher.

But just days before graduation, Ashanty was still grappling with her next steps. She was accepted to multiple colleges that offer a variety of opportunities but also vastly different experiences. She considered a private college more than 350 miles from the Bronx, as well as multiple public colleges closer to home.

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