This week seniors at Park are saying their farewells to their high school life. Throughout this week, seniors visited their old elementary school and saw their old teachers and other staff members. Students visited Peter Hobart Elementary, Susan Lindgren Elementary, Aquila Elementary and Park Spanish Immersion (PSI) Elementary and some went to Heilicher Jewish Day School.
According to senior Erik Lindell, it was very nice to come back to PSI to see his old elementary school again, but since the school relocated to a new location he didn’t actually get to see his old school. Instead, he saw familiar faces from staff members and teachers from when he was in elementary school.
“It’s nice. Even though I was never physically in this new building. It was a fun time seeing old teachers that I had and even seeing my old principal. All of us seniors got to experience this new building for what it is but definitely wish we got to do this in the building that we were at during elementary school,” Lindell said.
Senior Karl Nelson said visiting was a weird experience, with it happening in a school where he didn’t actually learn in. Also, throughout the years since leaving PSI a lot of the teachers that he knew left, except for a few.
“This new building feels really strange to me. A lot has changed since I was a little kid. I think it also sucks that I can’t really see many of my old teachers who left. I mean it still feels cool seeing teachers that I still recognize, but doesn’t really feel that nostalgic,” Nelson said.
Grade five teacher Gloria Ruff said the event is amazing and really fun. She enjoys seeing how much they’ve grown up and looking back on memories they had at the school.
“I really love when we are able to see students that we once knew when they were little. Now, we see them all grown up and are going into college. I just find it so amazing that they get to come back and see us teachers who once taught them,” Ruff said.
Lindell said now looking back at high school, he thinks it was an amazing time where he met new friends and new opportunities like extracurricular clubs, and overall thought that high school was an amazing time and is now looking forward to the next stage in his life.
“I feel like I’m really gonna miss high school. It was a really fun time where I made a lot of new friends, did a lot of stuff and just really thought that it was a cool and fun experience for me and am gonna kind of miss it after I graduate,” Lindell said.
Nelson said his favorite memories from PSI was the dance festival that the school would have at the end of the school year. It was called Baile Folklorico, where kids would rehearse a dance and perform to the rest of the school and do it at different events outside of PSI, like the Festival of Nations.
“My favorite memory at PSI was probably doing Baile Folklorico where all the students, depending on what grade they were in, got to do different dances that would represent a dance from a certain Spanish speaking country,” Nelson said. “We would do these dances for the entire school and sometimes perform at the Festival of Nations. I really enjoyed those times at PSI.”
Ruff said that she is very thrilled of what these students have accomplished so far in their educational careers and is excited to see what they do next after high school. She also said it’s really cool for elementary kids to be able to talk to past students who are graduating, giving some insight and they also went to PSI which is really cool.
“I am just really proud of these seniors who have made it this far. Who is about to graduate it’s just mind blowing. Knowing them since they were little. It’s really cool how far they have gotten. It’s really sweet seeing them play and sign the kids’ yearbooks when they were here. Being able for these kids to talk to past students who went here is really cool and amazing,” Ruff said.
