James Hart Middle School reunion bids farewell to class of 2020

James Hart School in Homewood likes to foster a family of sorts for its students.

Even after the eighth-grade class graduates from middle school each year, the district encourages students to stay close, to remember their class. To this end, the school organizes a farewell celebration when they graduate and then, four years later, when they graduate from high school.

The ceremonies help renew and strengthen friendships as a community bond, panthers to the end, officials said.

The homecoming tradition began in 2015 and has become a fun district tradition, said Homewood Elementary District 153 Superintendent Scott McAlister.

“It’s actually something we’ve done in previous years,” he explained. “We would invite graduating high school students to return for a final farewell.”

The tradition continued until 2020, the year COVID-19 broke out, lockdowns were ordered and social events, such as homecoming from school, were cancelled. For these students, McAlister noted, the end of their high school years was met with a harsh new reality: Classes became online-only. Suddenly, the school friends broke up and would remain that way for the rest of the year.

Because graduation was canceled and regular end-of-year ceremonies were cancelled, the Class of 2020 did not receive a send-off. That’s why district officials took great care to make this year’s homecoming happen. On May 24, students and staff made it a reality.

McAlister said high school seniors seemed more eager than most to make up for lost time. The Class of 2020 included about 100 students and said the turnout for homecoming was excellent, a sign of its importance.

“It was probably the biggest turnout in all the years we’ve done this,” McAlister said. “I think partly because their high school experience was cut short and they were able to see their teachers.”

McAlister said this group of students was not the last to be affected by COVID-19. The following year’s class also met online, and the following year was mostly masked. He said these emotional class reunions will continue.

“We’ll certainly see this for a few years,” he said.

But the class of 2020 was the test: Students were able to demonstrate whether the emergency plans worked, how well they worked, and where the blind spots were, and they did it.

McAlister said their resilience was demonstrated as this year, four years later, students were graduating from high school, like all those before them, some bound for higher education and others for the workforce.

The superintendent said that, as far as the district has been able to track, these students avoided the worst impacts of COVID learning and commended them for overcoming those obstacles.

“I mentioned to them that there’s been a lot of discussion about the impact that COVID had in terms of income and social and emotional health, but as I mentioned to these kids, COVID didn’t have a big impact on their progress in school,” she said. .

McAlister said students had the opportunity to grab a microphone and tell their friends, teachers and administrators about their post-high school plans and how much their time at James Hart meant, along with the theme of overcoming challenges and succeeding despite difficult circumstances.

“I think the tone was the idea of ​​resilience,” McAlister said. “These kids were able to overcome something that none of us had to overcome when we were their age. It was a great day for everyone.”

Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.