Harmony senior navigated challenges on path to success
Shane Toy, lead teacher at East Valley’s alternative school, Harmony High School, considers Tasha Kelly-Schafnitz an outstanding and inspiring senior mainly because she gives 100 percent. It’s something Kelly-Schafnitz, 17, suggests everyone do. “Do your very best always. It’s as simple as that,” she said.
Yet it’s not always “simple” for Kelly-Schafnitz. Diagnosed with a mild form of autism that includes learning disabilities, she has had some tough times. Her autism was more pronounced when she was younger,and some teachers didn’t know how to handle her. One teacher, she said, would dump her desk out on the floor at the end of the day and demand that she clean it. Kelly-Schafnitz has been picked on.
Though sometimes she cries, somehow she understands. “It’s not about me, it’s themselves they have issues with,” she said. “It’s not their fault; it’s where they come from.”
She attended East Farms Elementary and then Mountain View Middle School where she participated in community volunteering through the school’s Road to Success Program. She chose to attend Harmony after a teacher/counselor suggested the school. “I didn’t really want to go to a regular high school,” she said, “I wanted more one-on-one and my social skills weren’t so good. I needed a smaller environment. I’ve pushed myself every day at Harmony, trying new things and to meet new people.”
In her junior year and one semester this year, Kelly-Schafnitz attended the Skills Center, taking classes in veterinarian work. She loves animals (she has three dogs, three cats, and a rabbit) and hopes to one day be a veterinary technician. First she’ll take classes at Spokane Community College and then plans to go to school in Yakima.
She also wants to find a way to help other kids like her. “My mom owns a daycare for special-needs kids and their siblings. I’d like to keep that going,” she said, because she understands that they need to be understood.
Kelly-Schafnitz has participated in karate, softball and soccer. Currently, she throws the javelin on the track team. For the past six years, she has been in Girl Scouts, a pastime that most teens quit in high school. “I learn a lot in Girl Scouts and meet a lot of new people,” she said, “Sure I’m one of the oldest ones there, but who cares? It’s fun.”
She also knows how to work a scroll saw, a hobby she says calms her. A couple of years ago, she was featured in The Spokesman-Review for her efforts to raise money on behalf of her friend’s mother, who had breast cancer. She made and sold 3-D wooden puzzles shaped like animals.
Whatever she does after she graduates from Harmony this year, she will give 100 percent. To others, she urges, “Work hard, try to stay out of trouble, and try to make other people smile.”