Going to a Pre-K-12 school for your entire life is a huge double edged sword. I first started going to Sandy Spring Friends school in Pre-Kindergarten when I was four years old and haven’t left since. My mom had been working at Sandy Spring even before I was born and it was the school that my sister was going to at the time I was born. When it came time for me to pick an elementary school it was pretty much a given that I would go to Sandy Spring. I have had a wonderful experience here and I will always love this school, but going to the same place every single day for fourteen years can have its drawbacks.

One of the biggest problems with going to the same school for so long is that it makes it much harder for you to adapt to new things. There is a sense of comfort in coming back to the same place every year, without the concerns of making friends and trying to find your way around.  Then after fourteen years you have to pick up and move on in life. This process of leaving a place that you’ve called home for fourteen years and moving to a whole new school and town where you don’t know anyone is a traumatic and life changing thing.

Another issue with going to the same school for fourteen years is that you won’t know as many people as your friends who came from other bigger schools. As the years go by friendships will come and go as people come to and leave your school, but staying the same place means that you won’t meet as a many people and have as many friendships you would, if you were to have gone to several schools like many of your friends did.

But, for me, despite a few disadvantages of being a lifer , I will always be very grateful that I got the opportunity to go such a wonderful school for  both my grade school and pre grade school career. Like I said, there are some disadvantages to being a lifer. But, there is a reason that I have made the choice to go to Sandy Spring for long. That reason is because Sandy Spring is a truly unique and wonderful place to grow up. Overtime you make and build relationships with friends and teachers that are unlike those at other schools. There is always a sense of community and togetherness that is unmatched at other schools. So, when people ask me “what made you stay for so long,” I tell them, “why would I go anywhere else?”