Andy’s mother Tata became a draftee in the war on drugs the first time she went to prison for attempting to sell crack cocaine to support her own addiction.

It was the ’80s and Governor Rockefeller’s response to the national climate was to stiffen prison sentences in New York State. Possession of crack cocaine could now carry a life sentence.

Tata’s arrest made collateral damage of Andy’s childhood. One day, in the second grade, he returned home to the news that his mother would be gone for four years.

Ten months later, chronic truancy landed Andy in the office of a Board of Education psychiatrist. "School Phobic" was the Board’s official diagnosis. Andy refused to attend classes or stay the full day in school if he did manage to get there. It was explained that this is common among children who have had trauma occur in their houses while they were absent.

The doctor said "Children worry what will happen to their parents when they are not around and feel the need to stay home to protect them."

Eventually Andy’s school record got him a spot in a juvenile detention facility in Upstate New York, five hours away from his family in Brooklyn.

The 18 months that Andy was in the facility and the three sporadic years that he spent in New York City Public Schools account for Andy’s entire academic career. Now, at 20 years old, the resiliency that Andy has mustered after repeated tragedy is his education.