Moving on Up

A year ago, we were furiously searching to find a middle school that was accepting eighth graders, that we could realistically get a child to each morning without having to quit our jobs and who's philosophy aligned with ours and what our child would respond to. After a lot of emails, phone calls, Zooms and backroom conversations, we found our unicorn, the Sheridan School, and Noa started there this fall.

Noa had to deal with a lot in seventh grade (grief, bullying, Instagram inspired fight club) and by the end of it, they were pretty withdrawn. So it was kind of miraculous how engaged they became at Sheridan: they slept in yurts at mountain campus, starred as Lady Macbeth in the fall play, was a finalist in a city-wide poetry competition, wrote and performed a monologue, debated mandatory voting, performed an original piece for the poetry slam, painted a legacy block, joined student council, played softball, and led a cult of fifth graders (we're note entirely sure how we feel about that last one). And while this year wasn't without it's own trials and tribulations, we got through it, developed new supports and coping skills, and in the end, we were able to celebrate it.

And celebrate they did. There was bowling, and Six Flags, luncheons, a dinner which included a slideshow, speeches about each graduate from the Head of School, musical performances, student speeches from Student Council leadership, and some parental hijinks that Allen and I opted out of. The next morning, Mom Mom and Grandpa Don joined us at Sheridan for the official graduation, which involved the formal march, more speeches (with tears), musical performances, and each graduate being accompanied off the stage by their kindergarten buddy. It was incredibly sweet and a nice way to cap off a year of ups and downs.

Afterwards, there were lots of pictures (and unicorns!) and contact info exchanges followed by one last lunch with their classmates. There was another pool and graduation party later that night, but Noa opted to instead meet up with their Stuart-Hobson friends for a performance of the Spring Musical, Spongebob Squarepants, which was kind of the perfect epilogue to their (and our) middle school experience.

Let the high school years at Burke commence.

(To see all the graduation pictures, click here.)