What Does Success Mean at Lovett?

This is Living Love It! Stories from the Riverbank. I'm Jessica Sant, Chief Engagement Officer at the Love It! School. On today's episode, you're in for a treat. You'll be introduced to three outstanding Love It! students. Copeland Stukes and Kennedy Crane, both in our middle school, and Anna Mefford, a Love It! Upper Schooler in the ninth grade. For the past 10 months, this trio, along with a combination of teachers, administrators, parents, and a trustee, have been exploring the question, how might we broaden the definition of success at Love It? A wondering identified by the team itself, these three young people were front and center in leading very important efforts focused on celebrating the unique gifts each child at Love It possesses. But before we hear directly from them, it's important to establish an understanding of how this group was formed through our work with an organization called Challenge Success, how we've approached our efforts, and the tools we've used through Challenge Success, most notably its surveys. So when my role was created about two and a half years ago, one of the most immediate patterns I noticed was that there was a real desire for feedback from our community, and you could look at that through a lot of different lenses. We heard it from our employees, we heard it from parents, we even heard it from our kids. We started to look for tools that we might use to facilitate some of that feedback, as we really drilled down into what was available to us for students and parents' Challenge Success, the surveys through Challenge Success, immediately emerged. And I was familiar with the organization because of my work as a college counselor, but began to uncover all of the benefits and assets to a group like Challenge Success, and really how they think about engagement for schools. We ultimately, after a lot of vetting and a lot of homework on different tools that we might use, we decided to partner with Challenge Success to utilize their Student Engagement Survey and also their Parent Engagement Survey. And the benefits of using a nationally recognized organization is that we then have the ability to compare our results from our surveys to a national data set. Are we aligned with how other schools are operating? Are we outliers in a positive way or even a negative way? Are there things that other schools are doing to combat some of the same challenges we're facing at Lovett? Can we borrow those resources? Can we borrow those strategies? We have found that through this connection with Challenge Success, it hasn't just been about the raw data that we've collected through these surveys, but it's also how we've been able to lean on schools very similar to Lovett all over the country that are wrestling with the same types of questions. The very basic expectation of these surveys is to create space for people to feel heard. That's the first step in thinking about why we might offer a survey to our community. But beyond that, we obviously want to know where we need to improve and where we need to leverage what we're doing really, really well. Survey like this from a student and also a parent perspective allows for that information to be collected universally, not just in pockets around the school, not just in one-off conversations, but every person has the opportunity to share their input. And then that informs decisions for the school. And we'll talk about some of what I think we as a school community should be thinking about and also empowering parents to take the lead on some opportunities to improve their student's experience at Lovett and at Home Too. There is a lot of information in these surveys and we have done a couple different sessions with parents and also with teachers to start to reveal some of the information that's emerged from both survey tools. We did survey our middle school students, our upper school students and parents in grades 4 through 12. And one of, I think, the lowest of the low-hanging fruit that I see in this data, while there's so much there, sleep emerged as an area where I think all of us could do better. And all of us meaning not just our kids, but also us as adults. To give you a sense of what we're seeing in the middle school, right now our average middle school student gets about 7.9 hours of sleep on a weekday. The recommended amount of sleep for a middle school student is around 10 hours. 7.9 for an adult doesn't sound bad. I'd be feeling really good if I had 7.9 hours of sleep a night, but for a middle school brain that's still developing, it's really important that they're getting at least 10 hours of sleep a night. The other aspect of this dynamic that's playing out with our middle schoolers is that about half of them are sleeping with a smartphone in their room. And the kids who are sleeping with a phone in their room, they're getting even less sleep. I do think it's interesting that in our middle school, we have 16% of our middle school students do not have a smartphone at all. For those of you parents who feel like your student may be the only one without a smartphone know that there are other families who are choosing to make that decision around managing that technology in the same way. In the upper school, our average high school student is getting about 6.8 hours of sleep a night, and the recommended amount for a high school student is 9 hours. We have 161 students in our upper school right now that are getting 6 hours of sleep or less a night. Some getting less than 3 hours of sleep a night, which is pretty remarkable to me. 82% of our high schoolers sleep with a phone in their room, and they get again less sleep than their peers who do not sleep with a phone in their room. For the 18% that don't have a phone in their room, they're getting about 7.2 hours of sleep a night. And while that doesn't seem significant, every half hour makes a difference in the lives of our kids. The reason why I think this is so important is because think about it as an adult. If you don't get a good night's sleep and you show up to work or whatever you need to do the next day, you are not at your best. You're not as focused. You can't produce the same level of work that you likely produce, your fatigue, you likely get sick more frequently. The same thing is happening with our students. If they are in this routine of getting less than enough sleep every single night, they are operating at a deficit, which means that everything else that they do, all of the other questions we've asked in the survey, we're going to see an impact on how they show up because the very basic needs are not being met. I think that there's room for a conversation around what might a school's role play, what might a school's role be, in how we foster better sleep hygiene. We could talk about homework, we could talk about extracurricular activities, we could talk about class rigor, we could talk about a school day schedule. And those are certainly conversations that are coming out of this survey as a community. But I think when we talk about what might a parent or a family choose to do because they do believe that it's a school family partnership, we have to think about how we model the use of technology at home around our children. And we also have to think about what type of sleep practices do we have? I mean, I think about it. I've talked about my two-year-old more than once on this show. I'm already very much aware of whether or not I have a phone in my hand in front of her. She already knows what a smartphone is and can navigate it pretty well. It's really startling. My husband and I have been having a lot of conversations about what we want to model for her. And I think it gets even harder as your kids get older. There's no question in that. But thinking about things like perhaps making some family agreements around when we're going to put the smartphones up for the night. Maybe there's an hour in the evening where you decide we're all going to dock our phones in a room that's not our bedroom, which I realized is hard. But as a family, making that choice makes it a little bit easier. And then, quite frankly, other routines and traditions might emerge that may not have the opportunity to do so if everybody's got a phone in their hand. The other thing I would think about this seems very basic. And for many of us who grew up before smartphones were a thing, we had alarm clocks in our room. And so thinking about even putting an alarm clock in your child's bedroom rather than allowing them to use their phone as that alarm clock could make a huge difference in how much sleep they're getting and their ability to get good rest. I would say there's lots of data to talk about. And I really want to leave this episode to our students and their perspectives. But to me, the sleep conversation, the technology conversation, those two dynamics that are playing out with our kids, if we can start to address some of that, I think that we can start to tackle some of those higher order dynamics that are playing out at the school. We put together a challenge success team that is designed really intended to look over this data from the survey, particularly in the middle school this year. It's the group we decided to focus on first. And that team is made up of teachers, administrators, parents, a trustee, and also three students. And you will hear from those three students momentarily. This is a trio that was nominated by teachers in the middle school and administrators in the middle school who were really asked to show up as representatives and basseters liaisons for their division, the middle school division. What the goal of this group is is to think about, in this case, they've identified the priority of how might we, or I guess they've identified the question they'd like to tackle, which is how might we broaden the notion of success at our school? The students were really front and center in determining that how might we question, and they have been the ones that have driven the majority of the conversations, the majority of the next steps that we've taken as a team to really explore that question more. So they have led fishbowl conversations, which you'll hear more of in a few minutes from them. They have facilitated shadow days for teachers, and they've also helped our school counselors in the middle school collect responses from all of their classmates across the middle school that have asked them to fill in the blank, I wish my parents knew, or I wish my teachers knew. And you can imagine the type of feedback we've gotten from just that prompt alone. Our kids have been incredible leaders. It's a huge honor for them to be a part of this. They've expressed how much it's meant to them, but really our goal is the adults who often think we can solve these things on our own. Our goal has been to put kids front and center, kids perspectives, kids voices front and center, not just in the survey, but also on the challenge success team to ensure that we are solving for these challenges in our school with student perspective first. While we focused on the middle school this year, the plan is to form a new team in the upper school next year. So it'll be a new constellation of administrators, teachers, parents, trustees and students. They will look at the upper school data and form their own question that they want to wrestle with, really think about strategies on how they want to raise awareness about that question in the upper school. I have said this on other episodes. I say it pretty routinely. I think about it a lot as a college counselor as well that what we're talking about as a school community is not unique to our community. These are challenges that virtually every school across our country is facing. What I am so grateful for when I think about LoveIt is that we are willing to do the work to really think about how we can improve our students experience on this campus. And certainly nothing is perfect and we're always looking for ways to evolve and grow, but doing work soliciting feedback, examining that feedback and looking for opportunities where we can continue to improve I think is a really healthy thing for our community to do. And also it's a great behavior to model for our kids too. So I'm excited about this work. I invite our parents to if you're interested in being a part of the challenge success team next year in the upper school, please let me know. We're looking for parents who are interested in being a part of that. When I think about that school family partnership, this is one of many ways for us to foster that connection. Okay, that's it from me. It's time to hear from our team of challenge success student leaders. Here's my conversation with Kennedy, Anna, and Copeland, our middle school challenge success student leaders. All right, so first up, I would love for each of you to just say your name, your grade, and how long you've been at LoveIt for our listeners. And we'll start with Anna. Well, I'm Anna Mepurating. I'm in eighth grade and I'm in Bennett LoveIt since people are voting. Copeland. Well, I'm Copeland Stiggs. Well, I'm in eighth grade and I've been here since kindergarten. And Kennedy, hi, I'm Timothy Crane. I'm an eighth grade and that's been grandfist and seven. All right, so for our listeners, we have been working with a group called Challenge Success for the last year, examining our students experience as it relates to their academic and extracurricular and really health and well-being at LoveIt. And many of our parents participated in a survey that was meant to measure their perception of their students' experience here. And then all of our students, six through 12th grade, participated in a similar survey. So we have a group of faculty and administrators, parents, students, a board member who are all coming together to examine that data and think about ways that we might create a healthier, stronger community at LoveIt. And we have three of our students who are serving on that team here today on Living LoveIt. So Kennedy and Anna and Copeland, thanks so much for being here. All right, so I'm going to ask some questions. One of the exercises we've been doing as a Challenge Success team is something called a Fishbowl. And what a Fishbowl is meant to do is allow for listeners to really hear about a particular group of people's experience in a community without a response. And so I think a podcast is a great way to model what we're doing at LoveIt. We'll actually be offering a similar exercise to our middle school faculty. We'll have a group of students. These three will be a part of where they will be asked questions and teachers will just be asked to listen. We do this. We've done this in other spots on campus in the past, but this is meant to be a way to build understanding and really create more conversation in order of how to make LoveIt the healthiest place it can be for our kids. So first up, Kennedy, can you explain what our work from your point of view has been with Challenge Success? What is the question we are wrestling with as a team for the middle school and what have we done so far to sort of take on that path? So the question that we've been exploring or that we created is how might we celebrate broadened missions of success? And I think this is a really important idea that we've created and that we've discovered with our data. And I think what's the most important about it is that, like I said, at LoveIt, there's many opportunities that come with it. And some students may be really good at one thing, maybe really good at lacrosse. Or another student may be a great artist, but making sure that each student knows that even though they may not be good at the other thing, that still is what makes them successful. And that there's no awards or any idea that everybody thinks that successful in their eyes, that they know that in their heart, and they don't seal any less than somebody who may have all A's or may be good at something they think were. Right. Copeland, why do you think what we're doing is important? Why have you agreed to be a part of this team? I think it's important because I feel like many people, as Kenny said, they feel like they're getting something, but they would like to be stronger and other things and get more mad themselves because they're not as strong as they would like to be. But I feel like they should be happy about how they're good, like appreciate what they are getting. I think this is important for the whole love of community to understand this broaded notion of success. Great. And Anna, you're a ninth grader and we're tackling conversations in the middle school right now. For you, how do you see this translating to your upper school experience? Why is it important for a ninth grader to be a part of this conversation too? Well, I think in some ways, personally, I had a little bit easier time in eighth grade, just with academic and balloting sports and academics. And now that I in high sports, I found a little bit more challenging. So I found that I have to change my mindset from 95 is like my minimum grade in eighth grade to opening it up and being accepting bees and finding a way to put without knowing that I'm still working hard and not trying to get down myself because of what I all put my savings for all the past years. So that's an interesting point that eighth grade feels very different than ninth grade to you. Yes. One of the questions, Fishbowl, that we'll ask with our faculty that I think is worth asking you right now and I'll ask the other two of the same question is, when you are on your way to school on a Monday morning, what are three adjectives that describe your state of mind or how you're feeling? And I want you to do it in two parts. I want you to think about how you might have answered that as an eighth grader, those three adjectives, how you feel on a Monday morning, and how you might answer them now as a ninth grade. So in eighth grade, I would definitely say I would be excited and I'd be a little jealous and slowly and really and I guess just like hope because who will get great in advisories, like some of those who play games or like we do like a lot of activities and like be interactive and it was really fun space and like I'm more surprised when we played work with all of the talent and it was really fun. Oh, I would say love always very exciting school. I also went about really early in the grade and so I was not allowed super power than I thought I was going to love energy. So what were the adjectives being ninth grade now? Some of I would say I'm definitely talented, like I'm not really gonna get all out tired and I just hope for like also people because I think what I go to go like I want to hope that like when if I'm gonna test back to the umbrella about if I'm taking a test, gonna go like I'll prepare myself for what's hot with what happened during the day. Also I think all of the goals for me to the phone and you see on my phone and also like all my soccer or something I'll get both solid Z-L and soccer and talk about this. I do think that an interesting juxtaposition to say in eighth grade, one of the one of the adjectives was energetic and in ninth grade just in one year, it shifted to tired. Well, I've gone to bed in so much later than I used to like I get count like so much less sleep than I used to. And the data, the challenge success data reflects that that while in the middle school and the upper school neither division is getting enough sleep, you definitely see bigger dip as we look at what we found from that survey data in the upper school. It's a bigger gap there for sure. So you're a part of what you're sharing with it for. What about Kennedy? What adjectives? What three adjectives would you just use to describe how you're feeling on a Monday morning coming to love it? And I actually took one of my adjectives. I was going to say hopeful, you know. Yesterday we do something different. There's a new letter day which is all new classes every day. So you never really know what each class is going to bring. And I think I just get almost excited for it but I'm just hopeful that I'll will be excited about what everything and everything that we're going to do. Also I would say I'm pretty calm. There's nothing too much or too little. Just excited but chill with everything that's going on in my life. I'm feeling like I'm getting a good monously, my managing sports and being an athlete like that's going pretty well. So I'll just be calm with that. And then it kind of has to do with chaletfall but I would say intrigued. Well it really does have to do with being hopeful about what the day will bring. But intrigued about each lesson and what new things I'm going to learn that each day. Right. Copeland what about you? Three adjectives on a Monday morning. How you feeling? So I'm learning. I'm pretty tired. I get play asleep. I'm a large like always a little tired of the mornings. And then ready to learn I guess like I just like to learn. Well I'm like excited for that. And then prepared for a little weekend. Like I'd like to do all my work and I'm prepared. You're prepared for the coming weekend? I'm like prepared for like from the weekend. Prepared for the weekend of Monday. Already looking the bright and it's just you just got the weekend. No you're saying that weekend helped prepare for the weekend. Yes it was. Good. All right so Copeland I'm going to throw another fishbowl question to you. How would you describe Love Its culture to someone who's never been to the school before? Love It is super they don't just focus on one thing. They like focus on everything use sports and then great sports. Lots of learning and supportive teachers and you also get help with like social side of things. You can like do your hobbies I guess with all the elective use offers. So I think that it's like the culture is about preparing preparing with every side of you. Not just like learning or sports or something. Okay. Kennedy another fishbowl question for you. What do you wish adults in Love Its community understood about the challenges of being a good student here? Wow I think those words being a good student is something that we're trying to change with our challenge success idea of broadening notions of success. I don't know I feel like when we when I first got to Love It there was a lot of with the lingo and all of the things I was unaware of something as simple as brides and pike tellers and with that myth I was really taking views on all of that. So just when I first bought here as a new student maybe not so much now but I feel like just I wish the Love Its faculty knew that maybe if there was things when we're more clear about how what would happen from the beginning and school year to the end then maybe students would feel more successful and there'd be less stress on us to think that maybe one unit is going is super hard but then by the end of the year everything she's going to pile up. So just knowing the entire schedule would be easier on students. Well that's an interesting point too because you know Anna and Copeland are both like they shared have been here since kindergarten but we bring in a lot of new students every year and as a community we may take for granted that lingo that you just referenced and think that people just understand and it's really important for us to set a baseline definition for all that language that shared community language so everyone is speaking the same link right? It's a really important point. Anna you're the closest to graduation even though you're still a long ways off from that but when you you had a brother who had just graduated from here recently so you maybe can think about his experience too when you picture yourself graduating from Love It how do you think you will describe your four years in that upper school? I think so I think one of the words would be grateful. It's been I'm so grateful that I'm like because I know for two years it's kind of hard coming in second grade. You see the change when I think I'm grateful that I started out younger and I got like see the school develop, see it grow and understand all those like towards a pride and like understand what all of it means really gets in the world as well. I think in another world other than being also grateful and thankful because I'm in this school so I'm just so much and teachers and the experiences with friends that's giving me this and opening all every teacher I have is like super enthusiastic and love is teaching and I'm very thankful for now hearing from other friends experiences. Well, I'm trying to be a word. Try to take both of your words. That's really good. Yeah. Three weeks right? It doesn't have to be three just how you would think how you would describe your four years in the effort school. How you would expect to describe it. I can also like I'm reading some people and like looking through my brother and he held like a really feeling broke his life and had a way back in three and he was like you know thinking about going to college from sports and it was perfect because it was like last year's like the way I just saw like the way the community came together helped him and like helped push them through like such a big community. So I think I really like that watching that I think has really like made me super helpful excited about boring until meeting four years and reflecting back on the motor. Gratitude and community sound like two big words for you. Yes. Yeah, I love that. Okay, I'm going to throw this next fishbowl question to Kennedy. If you were a teacher, what is the number one thing you do to try to help alleviate student stress? I don't know if I would change anything. I think I would maybe add something to what teachers are already doing in my English class. I understand that maybe hard to as teachers are giving more work in us grades as you're as you get older. However, in English, my teacher gave us a almost pre-period. However, it was like games that pertain to the lesson that we were learning. So we're still learning things about our novel. However, it was a more calm experience for everybody because there were different stations and you could just be drawing a picture about a character in our book or you could be doing a mismatch activity. However, you were still learning about the things that you were doing. So just now I feel like that did alleviate some stress. I was making the day a little bit difficult. So that was something a teacher asked you to do. Yeah? Yes. Okay. So, Coughlin, what about behaviors that students have control over? Are there things that a student could do to help manage if they are feeling stressed or how they might manage that better from your point of view? I think maybe not getting as hard on yourself and knowing there's always going to be another test. Instead of being mad at yourself, focus on the future, how you're going to prepare for the next test and do better, having more future mindset and make sure you don't get hard on yourself because that really stresses people out with other things. So a future facing mindset, but also a growth mindset, right? That we're all still learning that it's okay to mess up. That's part of learning, right? Which makes me think of another question, and Anna, maybe you can think about this one. What do you think Lovett does to help students sort of not necessarily celebrate failures, but learn from mistakes, missteps, failures? I would say just like in general, I know this is kind of an often say, but like tutorial and I know some schools don't even offer tutorial, but whenever I fail or I do, it's really bad. Don't do as well as I wish, I always get to tutorial because I would be like the teachers are really open to having like they want to have a relationship with their students and like they want you to be able to help with them. And as well as like the guidance counselors are also like that we even happen with counselors, it's amazing to go talk to you. And I think all of them are there to make a connection and bond with you. And each teacher, like if you do anything bad, they want you to go to the tutorial. I like they want you to go help work it out with them and like, you know, learn from them mistakes, which makes me feel like really mission, it makes the failure seeing less of a feeling. Kennedy, if you were a parent, if you were a parent, what is the number one thing you do to try to help alleviate your student stress? What do you wish our parents knew? I wish my parents knew I actually had a conversation with my mom about this the other day that she was saying that I understand that if you're feeling sick, it's a easy like she always say that I can stay home if I need to, but not just for saying if I'm sick. Also, if I just need a mental health day because I feel like my parents know that that's a good idea or option for students who are in a transition period or just have a lot of stress on their hands. But I wish some of my friends parents knew what maybe they were going through that they don't tell them and that they tell me because I feel like that could be a large burden. And I don't want my friends people who are closest to me to it even have to carry that. So if their parents knew that sometimes a mental health day is needed and that they can there can be more of a transparency with that. Yeah. I was thinking of like adult. We just like, it's just brought up into me. Remember, did we listen to a speaker and we would in one of our community times? And he came in and he said, yeah, he was a father. But the one thing he says, we will expect like, blah, blah, blah, his life is like, wish she kind of said, like, this is bad. Like, you know, like, it's okay to like be not okay. Like, it's okay. Because if he cares, also that like, you know, you'll be okay. You got it. You can push through, you know, like making you like go about her books. Sometimes all you need is like a bad self. I'm so sorry to do all about SODs. Like, what's so hard, we long and just like kind of relating to you and like, while Charlie, make it seem lost in an age, even though they're just trying to like, help you push through. But like, well, sometimes feels nice when people were like, I'm so sorry to do this. And like, it's really hard. Well, what great advice and a method, what great advice both of you to just be able to acknowledge where somebody is, right? I think that's so important. And we need to do that as adults with one another. And I think kids, you guys are probably really good at doing that with one another too. But it takes practice. Say, that's really hard. And I'm sorry that you're dealing with that. Yeah, great advice. So that leads to another fishbowl question. What unspoken messages do you get from adults in your life about expectations of how you perform at school? Not, not, you know, verbalized language, but what are some of like the hidden messages that you think that you all internalize? And I'll start first with Copeland. So I feel like both my brother and sister, they're very good at academics. You're a shooter smarter. They also play lots of sports. Like, I think if I don't do well in a test or something, that I don't know, maybe like, I get more hard, harder myself, I should. And I should be able to, I think I should be able to balance it all out, like sports and academics and hobbies and all that stuff, as well as they did. And I think my parents expected about so horrible. Kennedy, what about you unspoken messages about success? I don't know if it's a bad thing. It probably isn't. But my parents always say that you should do better next time, which I think I should be getting better at the things I'm doing each time, especially since in eighth grade, there's a lot of throwback opportunities with tests. But each different lesson, each unit, something to maybe super good at and some other things you may not be. And if you're constantly hearing, do better, do better, do better, even if it's a next time, there may not be an opportunity for there to be a next time. If there's a new that's happening, that you may not be great at. So just understanding where you're coming from and that some things may take longer to grasp and others may not. I feel like that's something that people may constantly be hearing and is an unspoken almost tool that may come from adults. Yep. The difference between you'll do better next time and doing your best, maybe even the nuance of that, right? The difference in that. Because doing your best might be that you end up with a C on a test. But if you did the best you could, that might be okay. And what about you, unspoken messages about success? Well, I would just say that like, I grew up sober and about like my brother, like I had a brotheriness, yeah, super smart. And it's kind of forward. Because also teachers, they all had it and they love a lot of the teachers really liked him. And so I feel like I have this partial deal that walked in. If I don't do well, my parents are also just like, do they try to do best? Like sometimes they're very supportive. But like, well, tell me against this for you. Why if I don't do that well? And it's not like it's like, that's like what completely noble to say. But sometimes I'm just like, slow exhausting. It's like, I put so much work in that don't want to have to go in and do more work in say after school after I just spent like four days, something for a test. I didn't do well. I had to go after school and work even further for something like art. It spent so much time already doing. And to that kind of like, boy, don't have to have a feeling. And yeah, right. But it also sounds, it's interesting because it's like these unspoken messages we're talking about, but it also sounds like the pressure that you all put on yourself, right? That there's something coming from within you that feels like you need to perform, even if your parents aren't telling you that you need to be just like your older siblings, you might just be internalizing that somehow. A lot of times, while there while my mom plays in, she's like 12. And I'm so sorry. She's like, just you need to get a bad like she tells me like to stop selling when it just gets too late because like, it's definitely more self pressured, you know, that I like half a little bit to expectation and I need to get these brains. So I think for sure, we're more self involved. So where do you think the pressure to get good grades comes from? Why is that so important to you? Well, to me, it's kind of hard because I would swim. And so we're always in the competition. So when I was on like, multiple, I fixed it and I feel like we'd be in so much competition, like multiple. And obviously now in high school, we're not just siblings. I was a lot of fact to it because like, you know, we see like, no, my brother graduating home, both was us every year. Like, I want to be that way. Like, I don't want to like let anyone down. And it's just like, you know, come all that strange, if that makes sense. But it's like, we keep seeing going to keep working, keep setting. What do you love about love it? What makes you happy here? Kennedy, I would say it's kind of cliche, but just my friends just being around supportive community. I feel like there's people that you can relate to. There's, I feel like there's different backgrounds that love it. Even though there may be a majority of one just finding different perspectives and different types of people is always great and be able to create your friends in bond with different people. That was something I was really excited to do and have a fresh start coming to new school. So I would say being supportive community. What about you, Copeland? All the opportunities I have, I have in all the great classes. I'm glad to go to love it because I've, because I have so many opportunities and classes and so many supportive faculty and staff and friends. And it's the whole community super supportive. It just helps you just have a great time here at Love It. Anna, what do you love about Love It? I would say teachers because like, I think friends, you know, they're outside of school and everything and like, you can get to think of different schools. Like there's friends everywhere, but like, I think teachers at Love Specifically are just like unmatched and amazing. And you know, whether like in middle school, we had, I think it was not as like strict. It was since like one day in math class in seventh grade, we had the dance party and celebration. And it was like just so fun. And like, you know, at the, at every, on every Friday, they would have like Miss Chow and Mr. Spoonard, Spoonard, the math chair. Like, staying in like two guitars. We like left and it was cool. We're fun. And, and now we're guessing in the upper school too, like Mr. Butler, math man, he like dresses up these full costumes and like, you know, just so excited to like teach us and like, Mr. War is a good example. Like, he gets so like intense and makes you want to get a toss like, and what, like, makes you want to learn. And the teachers here just like, or just makes you make you feel like so excited and ready for the class. Yeah, it's great. Okay, so before I ask you the last question that every guest gets on living love it, I want us to do one more exercise to share with our parents who are listening. And this is another challenge success effort that we've done this year, our school counselors in the middle school, asked each of their classes to respond to two questions. And we're going to share their responses to one of those questions today. And that is, I wish my parents knew. And so Anna and Kennedy and Copeland are going to read just a handful of those responses from our students in our middle school guidance classes. So we're just going to go through one by one. You guys just alternate through Anna Kennedy Copeland, Anna Kennedy Copeland all the way through the cards. Okay. Okay, so good. These are other students responses to the question, I wish my parents knew. I wish my parents knew what being my age is nowadays with beauty standards, relationship, pressure, academic expectations and etc. I wish my parents knew that I'm stressed and overwhelmed almost forward, although I may not show it. I wish my parents knew how hard it is to balance everything out while still trying to be a good daughter and keep my grades up. I wish my parents knew how much I appreciate them. I wish my parents knew that I am always trying and that I never want to make them disappointed in me. I wish my parents knew I need another dog for support. I wish my parents knew I'm not my brother. I wish my parents knew I can be more responsible than they think. I wish my parents knew I want to be more confident. I wish my parents knew how hard I'm trying at school. I wish my parents knew how much I love them. I wish my parents knew or understood what it is like to be a teen. I wish my parents knew that I'm not them and I am growing up in a different time. I wish my parents knew it means a lot when they ask what's happening in my classes. So important. Thank you all. And so for our listeners, we're doing the same exercise with teachers and that will be shared with them in a faculty meeting and also little note cards will be put up in the middle school so the entire middle school community can reflect on some of what our middle school students have shared. All right. So here's the last question guys. Every guest on Living Love It answers and that is what does Living Love It mean to you? We'll start with Copeland. I believe that living love it means to embrace the super supportive community and to develop all your skills whether it be academic or sporting or extracurricular just develop your whole self and get ready for the long life ahead of you. Kennedy, I would say that Living Love It means opportunity but also legacy. Some students may have been coming since kindergarten and being love it for life missions but just thinking about what you'll say to other people. He come to love it and what you've been able to do today in your time there. So being able to share and make as many experiences as you can, I would say, is the important part to me about Living Love. Anna, I would say that Living Love It means the future and how what you take from love it and bring with you in the education and the friendships and the bonds you make and what you learn from love it and take with you. I also think that Living Love It is always trying to remodel itself whether it's making classes or getting the tears and how they are always trying to make it better for the future generations and to carry that with them on. We're years ago. Well, we are super, super lucky that the generation that is here right now is doing such a beautiful job and the three of you have been so much fun to work with over the last six months. I am personally grateful for using, yes, to this new experiment for the school and I think I can speak for everyone here to say that we are grateful for all the time and energy you've put into these conversations and how you're leading not just your peers but our adults in our community about how we might broaden the notion of success at Love It for all of our students and adults too. So thank you guys for being on Living Love It today. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to Copeland Stukes, Kennedy Crane and Anna Mefford for being on Living Love It today. Thanks too to Eileen Millard, Alice Park, Charmy Desai, Grace Stewart, Joseph Moody, Sarah Friedman and Dr. Tommy Welch for their efforts on the Middle School Challenge Success Team. You can find Living Love It on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Connect with the Love It School on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. All Things Love It School may be found on our school website, LoveIt.org. I'm Jessica Sant and until next time, I hope you've enjoyed this story from the Riverbank.