Did I speak? Yes. Do I remember what I said? No.

I got to Livonia De Jean with my mom around 5:50. By the time we got there many ILCers had already arrived, so I began walking around and talking to members of my cohort and to fellow ILCers who go to my  high school. Soon enough Don had us gather to discuss exactly what would be happening, where we were sitting, etc.

And suddenly Don appeared!

We sat down with our banners in the front row, and waited for the meeting to start (in theory the start time was 6:30). 

Jahnvi, Raqeeb, and I ended up using the banner as a lap blanket since we were cold. Once the meeting began it at first it seemed we might be done with our part quickly, as we were mistakenly called before the public comments. Once that error was worked out we heard many (34?) comments, mostly about Serra Adult School, and others about teacher wages. It was actually really interesting to hear all of the opinions on the Serra situation; I don’t yet understand what is legitimately happening to Serra and what the effects will be on the current students, but I want to find out.

After all of the public comments it was our turn to present. Due to time constraints we had to organize our speaking and, as Don put it, “Speak as a Team”. Chaperones introduced the members of cohorts, what classes each person would be taking, and then introduced the speaker. Evan covered the thank you portion, Robson covered how we got here, and spoke of the very, very, very, very long presentations, and the very, very, very, very long emails. Zunarah talked about what it will be like over the summer, and the very selective schools we will be attending.

Finally it was my opportunity to speak, and honestly I don’t remember a word I said. My topic was what we’re going to bring back to our community and how we’re going to share everything we learn with our community.

Then it was time for pictures! Don took the big and hard to coordinate picture first and then we splintered off into smaller group photos. My cohort and I took some pictures that can hopefully replace our current banner photo. And that was that.

Chicago squad photo