This Wednesday sophomores joined school social worker Ms. Foster and upper school director Ms. Brady in a day of service. They volunteered to work on a farm at Marvin Gay Greening Center in NE to do site maintenance, at Gethsemane Baptist Church in NW to organize the building furniture. These events were part of the school’s commitment to ongoing community service to develop Washington Latin’s identity as a school for students who feed their brains and hearts, through knowledge and service to others. 

In the final weeks of May, students will have a chance to reflect, re-see, and review during their academic classes. Grades 7 through 12 will have end of year assessments and final exams to prepare for, and as teachers wrap up the academic year, special attention will be spent on connecting to the past. Students will have a chance to compare and contrast different books, connect varied mathematical functions in multi-step assignments, make connections between historical events, and analyze classical texts with a sense of purpose during this time. The purpose of the end of year assessments is to give a chance for students to think critically and cumulatively about what they have learned, make abstract connections between ideas, compare and analyze from a vantage point of expertise. This is also a particularly important time for students to attend tutorial to review and ask questions as they look back!

It has been a tricky year for the graduating class of 2021. Students completed college applications, handled AP and academically challenging classes, and various rites of passage without the daily comfort of face-to-face learning. The seniors have taken these challenges in stride, and as they began a busy week of AP testing, this was also the beginning of a period of celebration of their hard work. Seniors met for a luncheon on Wednesday and will meet for a bonfire at Ms. Smith’s house tonight with several of their teachers. And the next months includes many more celebrations for seniors, including the prom May 21st, the cookout June 7th, Upper School Valediction June 11th, and graduation June 14th. 

For the final assembly of the middle school year, students reflected on the concept of Carpe Diem. Retiring school principal reflected on the history of the quote from Horace, which can be translated as “pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the next one.” Seventh graders J.D. Miller and Mikey Cooper reflected on their own experiences with choosing to seize the day in a speech to his peers, as did ninth grader Carys Nelson, who joined Washington Latin last year and fifth grader Quinn Frankiewicz. Students honored each other for being a supportive, kind, and cooperative classmates fifth grader Simon Riedel, sixth grader Sadie Greenhalgh, and sixth grader Karinna Meier, and also honored their teachers with “Faculty of the Month” merits. Teachers noted the hard-work, humor, tenacity, resilience, and kindness of this month’s merit winners, fifth graders Maxwell Gross, Mila Simpson, and Musa Dansby, sixth graders Lorelei Tarleton, Miles Johnson, and Selah Brown, seventh graders Carys Gill, Coruan Nunn, and Kai Pfeuffer, and finally eighth graders Bethel Gebreyesus, Dean Herst, and Shayla Greaux. The meeting ended with encouragement from upper school students to their younger peers to consider joining Latin Voices and Jazz Band in high school. There is no better way to seize the day than through music and performance!