Robert StGenis Voice empowered

We moved to New Jersey for the beginning of my junior year of high school. I was transitioning from Cranbook , a private school with a exquisite 600 acre campus designed by  Eliel Saarinen that is largely the birthplace of mid-century modernism among other things, to Morristown High School , a large public high school with 3 mish-mosh institutional buildings put together. Morristown had a very diverse student body, as opposed to Cranbrook where at the time diversity was like a few spare sprinkles on a white frosted cupcake. There were no bells at Cranbrook. Now, I had buzzers, guards, and an Attendance Czar who sent computer generated letters to your parents about your "illegal absence" if you missed a class. We had cubby holes at Cranbrook (which really needed to be changed as I had things stolen from me) but now I had a locker with random locker inspections, sometimes with the Morristown PD. ESL was something I had never heard of before, and teen pregnancy was something ...

There were no rainbow flags when I attended.  I attended Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont my first year of college. I recently learned the school is ceasing to operate as a college after a 185-year history. I will share my time in Vermont, not so much to "memorialize" my year of education there; in fact some of my experience is part of my permanent scarring which I will reveal, but that year was formidable in positive, negative and just realistic ways. I did a lot of growing at GMC and not really because of the school at all. My Mother and I did a tour of New England colleges in the fall of my junior year of high school. This was a rite of passage, certainly a tradition in our family and as important, if not more, to my Mom as to me. I still remember leaving Morristown, New Jersey on I-287 North, connecting to the New York State Thruway and working our way into New England. I remember the Trip-Tik that I had gotten from AAA and all the maps, which wer...

The last high school graduation I attended in 2018 was in one of the best rated school districts in the state in a community in suburban Chicago where you think "it couldn't happen here." I was actually a bit nervous during the ceremony. It was in an auditorium with the exit doors mostly to one side and everyone seemed to be a "soft target." There was a police presence outside the school, but I don't recall any inside the auditorium. The fact that a police presence has become more essential than precautionary or, in some cases honorary (showing up as to participate, receive or give an award), is a clear sign of the times. The shooting at Parkland was only a few months before. Photo I took at Mom's Demand Action rally, Orlando, FL 8/17/19 My step-sister recently moved to a great community in suburban Atlanta. I wonder if those kids will go through drills in case of a shooting. I hope they do because it is necessary; but I am sickened by the though...