Every once in a while, Atherton Ambassadors have an opportunity to represent our school and our district. Senior Ambassadors from any of the three academies were able to attend Hal Warheim Park with Highland middle school ambassadors to do a community clean-up. Not only are students learning valuable skills, they also learn how to be an important role model for their school.
Instead of taking a bus, students walked to the park, enjoying the nice scenery. About 2-3 8th graders were assigned to a senior to pick up trash around the park, learn more about academies, and high school in general. Eighth graders were given insightful information on how high school will be like, whether to push yourself or not, or what to get involved in. After time was up, students joined in a circle reflecting their conversations.
Adeline Holcomb Kreiner (8) is one of the Highland ambassadors. Kriener joined the team because it looked fun to do and there was a community forming. To become an ambassador, she explained you had to apply, so it was nice to be with peers wanting to actually be there and participate.
“I am going to Atherton, I’m doing IB. What I learned today is not to stress over it, I tend to get in my head a lot,” Kreiner said. “I was like, am I going to have to do 5 hours of homework or quit all my clubs? I learned by talking to an ambassador and hearing from the others, I don’t have to stress about it.”
Charlotte Gross (8) is also an ambassador as well. Working with the seniors, Gross learned high school won’t be as bad as she thought.
“If you manage your time really well, it won’t be bad,” Gross said. “I became a Highland ambassador because there’s so many things to Highland that are behind the scenes that aren’t advertised. I wanted to show fifth and sixth graders what you can actually do, and what you can do with your time.”
Andrew Sims (12) is an Atherton Ambassador, who represents IB.
“It went well, even though there wasn’t much trash we got to talk about which was probably for the best because we talked with them about what high school is like and just to prepare them,” Sims said. “The biggest thing we talked to them about was, of course they’re going to take the hard classes like AP, IB, things like that. If you put in the effort, it’s worth it because of KEES money, college credit, things like that.”
One thing that Atherton ambassadors and Highland ambassadors share is their school spirit, wanting to recognize what their school has to offer and opportunities that come with that. All students that attended learned important skills that will carry them wherever their education goes. Being an ambassador holds a valuable title which, nonetheless, the students achieved.
