She has been on the Wright State University Action Team, a diversity club and she and her family — she has an adopted brother and sister — hosted a Chilean exchange student this school year. She’s president of 4-H. She has plans for the future, including attending Miami University this fall and earning a degree in biomedical engineering to do research work.
In other ways, she’s atypical. Her struggle to graduate from Bellbrook High School this Saturday has been more difficult than most.
In second grade, she read below grade-level and was still trying to learn how to hop on one foot and jump over a stationary rope, her mother, Jeri Simmons, said. Simmons and Nesbit’s father, Robert Nesbit, both of Sugarcreek Twp., are divorced, but both played an important part in helping her overcome her difficulties in school, Liz Nesbit said.
Her daughter was placed in a special education and intervention program at preschool age because of complications from hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain) at 6 months of age that caused slow development, problems with reading comprehension, and balance issues, Simmons said.
In her early years, “she had a dumbed-down curriculum, but as they learned how much she could do, they expanded it,” she said. “I’m pleased with the amount of intervention they offered in the Sugarcreek schools.”
“She worked harder than your average high school student,” said Debra Sanderman, Nesbit’s high school counselor for college planning purposes. They worked together on organization issues, which should help in college, where the only extra help may be the extended time she now receives for test-taking, she said. They’ve put in a special request at Miami University for that.
“My parents never gave me the option of not graduating,” Nesbit said. “There was not a choice of not doing well.”
“That’s because I’m the American version of the tiger mom,” Simmons quipped.
“I think dragon,” Nesbit replied.
Intervention specialist Cindy Heil, Nesbit’s special education case manager at the high school, called Nesbit “an extreme example of someone who has worked very hard to work past her issues. She’s taking AP classes.”
Heil said Nesbit is one of few seniors at the high school taking an extra math class and two science classes, one an upper-level biomedical engineering class. “Her ACT scores were very high,” she said.
In her spare time, Nesbit said she likes to do artwork. She works 13 hours a week at Tim Hortons on Wilmington Pike, and likes to read and write.
“I work with my horse every day,” she said. In the summer, she rides Dante, her Percheron/Morgan cross, in show ring dressage. “I was sixth at the state fair last year in my class.”
Graduation will be both happy and sad, she said. “I’m sad to be separating from my friends. I’ll miss them. It’s weird to think of not going to Bellbrook High School.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2341 or kullmer@Dayton
DailyNews.com.
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