By Briauna and Tiauna Black
07/01/2025 – The74
Our mother had Type 1 diabetes during our whole life, but in our junior year of high school it got worse. She needed around-the-clock help, including support from us. We tried to make it work for the first two years, but it just got to be too much. Plus our minds were in a different place. We weren’t interested in dances and socializing. We were always thinking about our mother. We were dealing with bigger problems than what to wear to school. We looked into online programs for school and picked Clark County Acceleration Academies (CCAA), a hybrid alternative school that was available through our school district.
We were able to set our own pace and had the flexibility to meet our school obligations while focusing on taking care of our mother. We were able to make our own decisions about our school/life balance. Our teachers at CCAA were understanding when we had to leave school early, and they offered the support we needed to get us through the times when our mother’s illness meant we had to put school on the back burner….Read more about Briauna and Tiauna’s story at The74 here.