Drug dealing drags honor student down

Arrest jolts her, pregnancy gives her purpose

Holly Yettick, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 18, 2005 at midnight

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Ashley was driving a crackhead's car with expired plates the day fate's multicolored lights flashed her from behind.

The cop who found the rock in her purse that day last August scrutinized the fake ID and the bandaged nose. It had been broken by a jagged bottle brandished by five girls who'd jumped her after a drunken fight at a house party.

"How long have you been using?" he asked.

But Ashley was not a user. She was a former honor roll student who had been classified as highly gifted and talented. She had been raised by a strict and beautiful mother who spoiled her with clothes, toys and love.

"Education was the most important thing to her," Ashley says.

But unbeknownst to Ashley, her mother was leading a double life. She had been supporting her family by dealing crack cocaine.

Ashley was 13 when she learned the truth. Her mother was not only a dealer, but she had started dipping into her own stash. By the time Ashley started ninth grade at West High School, her mother's addiction had forced the teen to take over the family business.

The girl who had been forbidden at 12 to stay out late or date had moved out and gotten a boyfriend and her own apartment by age 16. She was earning $300 a night selling crack.

Ashley tried to attend high school, but the late hours of her trade made it difficult to wake up in time for class.

She transferred to Contemporary Learning Academy, a small alternative school, because she thought she might do better there. She didn't.

"At West or CLA, if you're not coming, you get kicked out," she says.

Ashley believes that some teachers at West were there just for their paychecks. Others, however, reached out. Ashley brushed them aside.

"I felt like nobody could tell me anything because they weren't taking care of me," she says.

Then came the day she was caught with drugs. The court attached an ankle monitor to her leg and ordered her to attend school.

A few weeks later, Ashley got news that further shook her world: She was pregnant by her boyfriend.

Ashley transferred to Florence Crittenton, Denver's only school for teen mothers. She still misses class for court dates and prenatal care, but says Florence Crittenton works with her on this.

The court ordered Ashley to live with her aunt and uncle in their southwest Denver house. Most mornings, she leaves by 6:30 to catch an RTD bus to her school 11 miles away. She attends Florence Crittenton for seven hours, then takes another bus to the Career Education Center for three hours of night school. Visits with her baby's father, who has remained her boyfriend, are usually limited to weekends.

Ashley wants to earn as many credits as possible before her daughter's birth in June. She hopes to earn her diploma, then study cosmetology or business so she can open her own salon or restaurant.

She has lost years of her life. She is 18 and still in the 10th grade. But she is doing better now than she's done since middle school.

Her mother, meanwhile, has entered a yearlong rehab program in California. Her father, also a recovering addict, is out of prison and working construction. He calls her during her bus ride to school to tell her how much he loves her.

"Ever since I got pregnant," she says, "it kind of changed everything."

Ashley, now a student at Florence Crittenton, Denver's only school for teen mothers, looks over a breast-feeding device during a recent class. Though unplanned, her pregnancy, Ashley believes, has added meaning to her life and helped inspire her formerly addicted parents to stay clean and sober..

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