“Skrt skrt!” The brand new 2003 minivan door slowly slid closed as my mom held my hand. My first day of kindergarten started walking through the rocky terrain up to Jacobson Elementary School on a hot, summer morning. Prepared with my lunch box full of goodies and plaid backpack weighing me down, I walked through the gates to the kindergarten playground. My mom helped me find the girl I met on “Meet the Teacher Night” and stayed close by as we played in the ant-infested, wood chip playground. Then suddenly, in the middle of making a wood chip pancake, the bell rang as if it was taunting me, I knew what was about to happen and so did my mother as I watched her face droop more and more as the bell rang it’s three chimes. My mom walked with me to the wall my teacher designated as the wall to line up on. My hand started to constrict around my mother’s as we approached the wall, as we got closer my knuckles began to turn white. My teacher, Mrs. Priest, announced it was time for the parents to leave.…
“You’re transferring schools, Karina!”, my mother exclaimed a week before my sophomore year. Ultimately, this was the last thing I wanted to hear. I kept trying to decipher whether the news was good or bad. Moving to a Medical Magnet school smelled like defeat, and I was not fond of change. Public school was my forte. I was adapted to crowded lunch rooms, lively classes, and having classes such as art, band, up to ROTC. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but there was something hidden behind my personal chaos. Overall, this life-altering experience is what shaped me into the dedicated pupil and aspiring health care professional I am today.…
Williams Elementary School is located just off of interstate 75 and home of the mighty Eagles. From the outside it has the appearance of a typical school with screaming students, rushing parents, and screeching buses. It is made out of boring brown bricks and beige stucco boarding near the top of the building. The inside features a prison-like setup, only with more vibrant colors. There is a double door leading into an office with multiple faculty and staff. In order to actually enter the school, you have to be buzzed in by the round and hyper man at the main desk. Once in the building, you will see that it is shaped like a large square with hallways extending from four sides. The hallways are full of colorful painting of eagles, laminated…
Growing up my mom has always encouraged my siblings and I to continue our education to as far as college. My mother never really got the chance to attend college because her family could not afford to put all their kids in school. She had seven siblings and an extra bill for school was not something her parents were able to afford. I consider myself really lucky to be alive in a time where there are so many opportunities to be able to afford college. If it were not for scholarships and financial aid, my mother’s story would be repeated once again. Through financial aid, the door for a college career is opened for me and I’m willing to enter it. My biggest motivator to push myself academically has been my…
When I started Unity High School I thought that we were going to get a lot of work from my classes, and that work was going to be extremely hard. I also thought that I wasn't going to have any free time to do anything because of that, but it turned out to be wrong because the teachers give us a good amount of work but its not really hard. I thought that making friends in Unity would be hard in a sort of way but it was quit easy because everyone else was trying to make friends too. When I first got to Unity I also thought that there was going to be a few school clubs, but there is a good amount of clubs that students can join if they want to join some type of club. I think as a person I have grown more since first coming to Unity because I…
The sadness that comes with saying goodbye to the friends you have spent your whole life with when moving is never easy. Throughout my education, I have moved schools 3 times and every time it has been a struggle to acclimate socially, mentally and academically. I started at Diegueno Middle School in the middle of the seventh grade. This was now my second school in only the first half of my first year of middle school. Again I had to adapt to new people and a different course load. This school had a much higher standard of academia then my prior school and at first, I struggled. School felt alien to me. Time passed and I made new friends and I got used to the difficulty. I started high school with the same group of friends from middle school…
For the past two years, on the 1st Monday of the month I have participated in Site Council meetings at my high school along with other Associated Study Body (ASB) members, our principal, school administrators, parents, and teachers. Frequently it was brought up that minorities were not as involved in our school as majority groups. ASB has always been dominated by white students and as a Latina, I found it very intimidating when I joined.…
Middle school in Chicago was completely different from back home. One day as I was getting more familiar with the school, I stopped for a minute to take a look at my surroundings, I saw girls dressed in long girly dresses, others having breakfast in the cafeteria while preserving their legs closed and some absorbed in the illusion that they must look good all the time to be the girl they were taught to be.…
When I entered Havre Middle School I changed In many and numerous ways. When all people enter middle school they change, such as maturity, puberty and how they dress. When I entered 6th grade my looks and how I act definitely started to change. Another way i have changed are my dreams for the future. I have realized in the past few years of Havre Middle School.…
Aisha and I met each other in the 5th grade when we were both placed at the back of the class. She is now a sophomore at Aspire Langston Hughes Academy. Aisha is a 16 years old Pakistani girl who lives with her parents and younger brother She has with wavy purple-magenta hair reminiscent of candy. She speaks with a slight accent and is quite overdramatic. I’ve known for 6 years now. The reason Aisha and I are still extremely close is because we went through the same hardships during our late elementary school years, and she was the only person who kept me alive and sane in middle school and high school.…
Ever since my first day of school, my parents have observed that I work most effectively within an environment that contains an extensive ethical and organizational framework well as many opportunities to stand out and lead if possible. That is why my parents encouraged me to apply to Chaminade High School, the nearest Catholic school.…
“East High is a place where teachers encouraged us to break the status quo and define ourselves as we choose. Where a jock can cook up a mean crème brûlée, and a brainiac can break it down on the dance floor. It's a place where one person, if it's the right person, changes us all. East High is having friends we'll keep for the rest of our lives, and that means we really are 'all in this together'. Once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat!” Troy Bolton. Although I am not a student at East High from the movie High School Musical, this quote sums up my experience at North Kingstown High School. Like the students from the movie, I was encouraged to be myself and along the way I created life-long friendships and many memories.…
Middle School. My first steps into the “North Building” and I was terrified. There was moisture in the air and the carpets were moist from being freshly shampooed. It almost smelled like a new house, even though that building was as old as Abraham Lincoln if he were still alive.…
brother and I would sit side by side in the pew, quietly awaiting ques to stand or kneel. I would…
I was the kind of guy who always strove in order to get the highest grades but yet hadn’t decided what to do in the future. I wasn’t worried, I knew someday I would find something in what I was good at. I got to live with that thought for some time until I got to attend middle school, where I stopped worrying about my grades and managed only to pass the subjects. I spent most of my time sleeping due to the frustration of not knowing what to do in the future. Most of my middle school experience was tasteless. I hadn’t friends at all, and teachers used to discourage their students about their future. “You're not going to college, you’ll not be able to do it because you’re poor” used to say, Mrs. Vazquez, the math teacher who instead of giving her class, talked on how much his son had accomplished in college and how we would not be able to attend. That was about to change.…