It's a new school, and I know some of the teachers, so I feel comfortable with the change.

I was always the kid in school that teachers were getting after to be quiet. My report card had math, A, reading, A, spelling, A, science, A, conduct, F. I was always talking to somebody. They would always take me and put me over in a corner by myself.

My English teacher has no face. She has uncombed stringy hair that droops on her shoulders. The hair is black from her part to her ears and then neon orange to the frizzy ends. I can't decide if she had pissed off her hairdresser or is morphing into a monarch butterfly. I call her Hairwoman.

Stephen goes to school here now and teachers always tell me what a good boy Stephen is. I used to always see Crystal here. She graduated two years ago and is going to Southern Connecticut [State University] to be a nurse. I'm proud of her—she's going places.

Affordable housing is a major issue here. Last year, the school district had some teachers back out of contracts because they could not afford to live here.

This is going to take a lot of teacher training. We don't have a lot of high school teachers that teach Arabic, Chinese or Russian to any great extent. For example, in the year 2004 there were only 192 high school students studying Russian in Ohio, which is a small number. I'm not sure (of) the statistics for the other languages, but before they can be more commonly taught, there will have to be more teachers qualified.