The Beginning of an End… The Unpopular New Start

By ZAHRA TSHAI ‘22

The administration has decided to change the return date for boarders; the arrival date will be much earlier than it has been in past years.  According to Mr. Heard, the administration has shifted the return date because the move-in for boarders originally took several days. During that period, students often sit in their rooms and overheat while stranded on campus.  The new schedule requires boarding students to arrive on campus on September 2nd as opposed to this year’s arrival date of September 6th. In past years, varsity athletes and performing arts participants arrived early for tryouts or auditions, and students who did not partake in any of these extracurriculars arrived in the following days.  Mr. Heard explained that the school dealt previously with several waves of students: new students arriving from Transitions, varsity athletes and theater kids, and, finally, the rest of the boarding community. The administration found that a large portion of the returning boarding students were athletes or theater kids, so they deemed it unnecessary to have several move-in days that would put extra strain on the dorm staff, who were required to reiterate the same messages to different groups of students.

The new schedule aims to consolidate move-in and allow for more bonding within the boarding community, but it is also due to the strain on the dorm staff, the ISL athletic schedule, and the new Transitions program.  Unlike the old Transitions Program, the new Transitions incorporates white students, so the amount of new students arriving will practically double. While the administration will still have the move-in day for Transitions students on August 31st, all returning boarding students are now required to arrive on campus by September 2nd.  Mr. Rodriguez explained that the return time for boarders is affected by the ISL athletic schedule, which requires varsity teams to have completed a certain number of practices in order to compete in games. Since a large number of boarders are varsity athletes, Milton needs to have them back on campus for practices before their games begin.  

Although the new move-in is easier for members of the administration, some boarding students have found it increasingly more challenging to return.  Morgan Hackett (IV) states that “arriving before Labor Day weekend presents several challenges to me emotionally because Labor Day weekend is a time my family traditionally comes together to relax and hang out, so coming to Milton that weekend makes me feel like I am missing out on a large aspect of my family.”  Echoing Morgan’s statement, Emma Tung (IV) emphasized, “It is not easy for me to be away from my family for so long, so I feel my summer to be the only time I get to see them. By going back to school early, my important time with my family and friends is taken away from me.” Although the boarding students will arrive slightly earlier than they did this school year, the schedule compensates for the early arrival of boarding students by having an earlier graduation on June 5th.  While the new schedule does not currently seem popular among boarding students, it is already set in the upcoming academic year.