Students Speak:

Class of 2010

Hi, my name is Mia. Eighth grade went really well, and I liked all my teachers. Every classroom is a great learning environment, and I felt very supported by all my classmates. Everyone realized that it would be our last year together and no other school was going to be the same and we wouldn’t go to school together next year so we valued the time we had.

I was in the fall play, Much Ado About Nothing. The year before, I was in Oliver!, and it was really fun, so I decided to try out again. It went really well, and everyone had a good time. All the characters were challenging because it’s Shakespeare and the lines don’t always make sense at first, and we had to figure out how to emphasize certain words and make them our own.

I came to RDS in sixth grade, and only knew two or three people at first. Everyone was really friendly and showed me where the bathroom and water fountain were and how to get to my classes. I felt welcomed, and it showed me that they enjoyed having me here.

If you ever start falling behind, the teachers pick up on it and check in on you and make you come at study hall or after school and help you perform to the best that can. I don’t think a lot of other schools help you in the same way.

One of the memories that really sticks out in my mind is the sixth-grade Outdoor Ed trip, when I got to hang out with everyone and not just my circle of friends. The entire class got to know each other even better during Outdoor Ed.  

In Activities, I was in DiY (Do it Yourself), and I did it (myself!) in seventh grade too. It’s a time when I could be creative and make things differently from everyone else and use whatever materials I wanted to create things. You get to have fun.

I’d never run track before, but “Super Ryan,” my sixth-grade track coach, was really nice. He made it so I wasn’t nervous at all. He was so relaxed and chill about it that he made all of us comfortable. And he was supportive even when we didn’t win.