JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Throughout the year First Coast News will document a continued transformation within Andrew Jackson High School. Once in danger of closing in 2011, it took determined teachers and staff to turn things around at the school located in a violent part of the River City between Main and Pearl Streets. Among that group is a math teacher and coach consumed by her own personal battle fighting for her life while fighting for her students.
"I started off with sneaking into practice. I needed to get out, I needed to have a normal life because it wasn't normal anymore,” said Lorlesha Pitts. “You get into those four walls and you start to think - 'Is this it?'”
Pitts' "norm" was threatened in October of 2011 when she was diagnosed with lymphoma.
"When they confirmed it, it was just like everything went so fast 'cause when they confirmed it was stage four," said Pitts. "They were like we need to move because it's all down your back."
The next eight months would prove to be some of her darkest days as she fought to return to the home of the Tigers.
"I had to get out not just for me but for the kids. They wanted to see me, they wanted to see that I was OK," said Pitts. “It's just you lay in that bed, and you start having all types of thoughts. You start getting weak. Your body gets weak, your mind gets weak."
As she became weak, her support grew stronger.
"I had letters and cards from students I taught, my basketball players, from other students," she said.
She missed out on a bonus check at school while fighting back against a cancer determined to claim her life. The staff at Andrew Jackson High stepped in.
"I had somebody give me $500, I had someone give me $100, $50, $20 it just started pouring in and I was like 'wow,'" Pitts said.
It didn't end there. Pitts was shocked to be included in a basketball game at Ribault High dedicated to cancer victims and survivors.
"I walked in the gym, and by the time I got to half court and looked in the stands, all of my players were there," she said. "We had teachers there, other coaches, and by the time I turned the corner, I just broke down."
By the fall of 2012, Pitts beat cancer and stepped back onto a familiar court. In 2016 she became Andrew Jackson High's Teacher of the Year.
“The kids become family. They look at you as more than just a teacher for some you're a surrogate mom, an aunt, someone who cares,” said Pitts. “When I tell you there's no place like home, there's no place like home. There's no other school I'd rather be at, at this moment.”
Pitts recalls teaching in her math classes at a time when Jackson was in danger of closing its doors. She didn't give up on her students and watched as their grades slowly improved. Andrew Jackson went from an "F" in 2011 to now a "B" ranked magnet school. That's in part thanks to dedicated teachers and staff like Pitts.