At last week’s faculty meeting, several students, ranging in age from ninth through twelfth grade addressed teachers in a panel moderated by Ms. Grant. The event, the first of its kind, brought together a wide variety of students to share their experiences at Washington Latin, including the triumphs and challenges of being a student in the middle and upper school. Students reflected on school policies, issues of peer pressure, bullying, and ethnic identity.  Students spoke with poise, sophistication, and honesty that was stunning, showcasing the impressive public speaking skills that our school prides itself on.  Later in May, interested staff members will continue in an after school dialogue with the students and to begin to collaboratively brainstorm ways to continue to improve our school. This commitment on the part of teachers and students to work together to endlessly build our community through dialogue is central to our school’s values.

Friday juniors and seniors will host their annual prom at the Hill Center at 8 pm. The event, chaperoned by upper school teachers, features fancy clothes, limousines, music, dancing, and fine catering provided by Latin parent Tracy Stannard, owner of the Broad Branch Market. The event was organized by the student council, with chairmen Kennedi Cook and Nodiyah Satterwhite taking the lead. Council advisor Ms. Seid as always played an important role, planning the event with students and assisting her students in creating prom-posals in her classroom. This year students used various props to as their dates to come, creating signs, bringing balloons, rose petals, candles, music and videos to ask friends to join them at the prom. The winning prom-posal from senior DaQuon Brown to  Erica Thompson earned two free tickets to the prom. After prom students head to Flight Trampoline Park for an overnight afterparty chaperoned by parents. 

Eighth graders will be visiting the Avalon Theater this Friday to see the movie Newsies. The movie, which focuses on a paperboy strike in the 1920s, touches on some of the key issues in the American turn of the century industrialization that students have just learned about in Ms. Coppola-Klein and Mr. Anderson’s history classes. The musical sets the conflict over workers’ rights and pay to music with songs and dances that focus on the employee struggle for fair compensation. Students will be writing a paper about the historical accuracy of the movie’s depiction of big business, child labor, urbanization, unsafe working conditions, and union organizing.

Last weekend the upper school boys’ track team scored 46 points, finishing 5th overall at the Draper Invitational meet, against a few public and many private schools from the Washington, D.C. area. Our school was the only charter school to attend.  Freshman Luke Tewalt earned 2nd in the Boys’ 3200m, running 10:01.48 on Friday. Tewalt was the only freshman to place in that race. Luke also won the Freshman 1 mile race, with a time of 4:44.00, finishing as the 2nd fastest time run by a freshman in the meet’s history. Senior Sam Mader achieved his dream of finishing the 800m with a time under 2:00 minutes. He scored 1:59.16, earning a fourth place finish and a fourth place rank for the city’s record. The boys’ 4x200m team of seniors Judah Lloyd and James Medrano and juniors Ayinde Motirayo and Max Muradian won 2nd overall running 1:32.48. The 4x400m relay team of Lloyd, Mader, Motirayo and Muradian won 3rd overall with a time of 3:34.87. Finally, the boys’ 4x800m relay team of seniors Mader, Matthew Davis, and freshmen Tewalt and Oliver Spiva shattered the Latin school record with a second place finish and a time of 8:25.41. The track team is coached by middle school dean Mr. Callum and upper school grade director Ms. Brady.