Still, as much fun as the weekends are, Sundays are dif��cult.
“Mom cries,” Ashley said, smiling and looking at her mother
with love.
According to Antonia, there were times Ashley would come
home from Palmetto Elementary sad, saying that some students
excluded her and didn’t accept her. In her current school, Antonia
said, it’s different. The students and teachers understand each
other, she said, and they share, and they talk. “This world is
dif��cult for her,” Antonia said, referring to Palmetto Elementary.
“Where she is right now is where she is supposed to be.”
Sketching as Expression
For Ashley, drawing is a way to communicate, Antonia said.
“Ashley knows how to show what she feels in drawings,” Antonia
said, adding that Ashley’s done so since she was a toddler.
Many of Ashley’s drawings depict her and her mom, sometimes
with the slogan, “I Love You, Mom.”
Cherelyn Bolt, a third-grade teacher at Palmetto
Elementary School, taught Ashley for oneand
a-half years. Like many of the school’s
teachers and administrators, Bolt adores
Ashley.
“I watched Ashley’s oral language
blossom in my class,” Bolt said. She
said she also witnessed Ashley
develop special friendships with
students who wanted to learn sign
language. “She became a social
butter��y,” Bolt said. “She’s quite
a character. At times, she has a
very lively personality.”
The year Ashley was in Bolt’s
class, the students wrote and
illustrated “autobiographies.”
The booklets would include their
future lives, including high schools,
colleges, and careers. For
example, in Ashley’s book,
she wrote, “I graduated from
Manatee School for the Arts”
(which is her older brother’s
school).
The illustration on that page
is one of Bolt’s favorites. It
shows Ashley in a graduation
gown and hat, embracing her
mother, and both of them are
crying, but smiling.
It was in Ashley’s autobiography
that she revealed
she wants to be an art teacher. “It would be a natural ��t for her,”
Bolt said, describing Ashley’s artistic ability as “off the scale.” She
said she thinks Ashley’s art teacher, Alex Miranda, may have been
the inspiration behind Ashley’s career choice.
“I think she’s going to pursue her goals; I could absolutely see
her becoming an art teacher,” Bolt said. “I can see Ashley
doing anything.”
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