Hello, dear readers. Today we come to you, not as the esteemed Beacon editors that we once were, but as fellow students on the cusp of graduation. By the time this article is published, our time at Jackson-Reed will officially be over. In this spirit of sentimentality, we wanted to give the readers of this article a comprehensive review of our time in high school.

The past four years have been quite the roller coaster. Between four different schedules, three different principals, and two different names, Jackson-Reed continues to be even more chaotic than we’d expected. 

The first year of high school is a crash course in independence, especially in a place as big and disorganized as Jackson-Reed (we can all relate to the learning curve in freshman year of finding hygienically acceptable bathrooms and learning to never, EVER, drink from the water fountains). But the chaos also helped us to figure out who we wanted to be and shed the younger and far less cool versions of ourselves. We continued along this journey of self-discovery until March, when COVID abruptly put an end to our “normal” high school routine.

When it comes to sophomore year, there’s honestly not too much to say. We spent those nine months of quarantine sleeping at inappropriate times and pretending to do PE workouts on our bedroom floors. Instead of bonding over food webs and mitosis like the two of us did having met during freshman year biology, we sat in front of our computer screens, sad and lonely. It was a blur. We try not to dwell on it.

Obviously, quarantine came to an end and we eventually returned to school…just in time for the most stressful year of our lives! Junior year was rough. Between extracurriculars, socializing, and the massive APUSH workload, it’s fair to say that we blacked out a little. At the same time, coming back to school and getting to be part of a community again was awesome. As a soccer-swimmer championship duo, we really loved our junior year seasons. Being with friends and bonding over defeating Walls helped reinvigorate us after spending so long in quarantine. Plus, we got to start imagining our futures in college (before the stress and competition truly set in). 

We come to you now at the end of our senior year, a period of time that has been dominated by college. Between visits, applications, and admissions decisions, senior year is basically one never-ending college to-do list (and we still haven’t finished it all). But being a senior isn’t all stress and fatigue! Once your senioritis hits, you’ll enter into a state of pleasant, uninspirational nothingness. An academic void, if you will. Tardies? No longer your concern. AP tests? You won’t study for a single one. As long as you manage to meet the constantly changing graduation requirements, you will not be motivated to strive for anything other than mediocrity; it’s great. The time you once spent worrying about school will be filled with wholesome social events: skip days, senior sunsets, one acts, prom, and all the other wonderful activities provided by Jackson-Reed’s vast array of extracurriculars—including the Beacon.

The Beacon provided a community within Jackson-Reed who we could always turn to for a laugh or a hug. As opinion editors we have learned to edit constructively, manage conflict, and write the snappiest articles ever. Of course, we have to shout out the one and only Mr. Burgoyne for his sarcasm, commitment, and never ending support for his students. We hope that in the future, even more members of the Jackson-Reed community get to take advantage of the amazing resource that is the Beacon.

Overall, high school is no cakewalk. Between bathroom floods, megaphone hall sweeps, and Calculus Deltamath, there have definitely been some rough times. Still, as we walk out between the broken metal detectors for the last time, we can’t help but think about all of the great experiences we’ve had here. 

Thank you to everyone and everything that has made the past four years so memorable and congratulations to the first ever graduating class of Jackson-Reed High School!