How a STEAM Academy student graduated, through grief and mental health challenges

Over the past four years at Lexington’s STEAM Academy, graduating senior Audrey Rendon navigated the COVID pandemic, mental health challenges and “the heartbreaking loss” of her mother to breast cancer to achieve academic success.

When Rendon’s mother, Mandy Berscheit, died in 2023, “the devastation was overwhelming,” she said in a speech at the May 22 STEAM Academy graduation.

“My grades dropped,” Rendon said. “I shut down and I pulled away from people who just wanted to help, including friends, family and counselors.”

Rendon, 18, plans to major in political science at Northern Kentucky University. But the loss of her mother brought grief and mental health challenges she had to overcome.

“I felt completely let down by life,” Rendon said. “But through all of that, I made it. I’m graduating with college credits.”

The six Fayette County high school graduations will be held at Rupp Arena May 29 and 30, though the STEAM Academy graduation was held on May 22.

The STEAM Academy, which emphasizes science, technology, engineering and mathematics, provides students a college-based semester schedule, where full-year high school courses can be completed in one semester, according to the district website.

Accelerated classes allow students to enroll in dual-credit college courses during their junior and senior years. Students who are eligible attend classes through Bluegrass Community and Technical College and the University of Kentucky.

Rendon said because students were required to wear face masks during the pandemic, she didn’t get to see most of her classmates’ faces until their second semester together. And at first, she didn’t know many students in the special program.

But making friends was just one obstacle. Rendon said her mother was first diagnosed with cancer when Rendon was in the seventh grade. Three years of high school were focused on her mother’s health battle.

She worked with a therapist to address her anxiety and the grief from losing her mother.

“You have to push your grief aside to help others,” Rendon said. “As much as I wanted to cry in bed for eternity, it just wasn’t an option. This last semester of my senior year I went to prom, I’m friends with a lot more people. I spoke at my graduation.”

Rendon simultaneously gave her graduation speech verbally and in American Sign Language, a tribute to her uncle Jon Berscheit, who is deaf.

“So proud of my niece, Audrey,” Berscheit said in a Facebook post. “She surprised everyone by delivering her entire speech in ASL. Your mom is smiling down on you, proud as ever.”

“Audrey is determined, she’s driven, she wants to protect the vulnerable,” said Allison Barnett, who Audrey describes as a surrogate mother.

Rendon said she is talking publicly about her mental health issues because she thinks its a growing problem among teens.

“It needs to be normalized and acknowledged,” Rendon said.

Rendon said she and many fellow members of the Class of 2025 faced challenges.

“Remember everything you’ve overcome,” Rendon told her classmates in her graduation speech. “Remember the ones we lost along the way.”