When I walk in my children’s middle or elementary school, the office employees do not know how to pronounce my child’s name. Today, I was told, “It’s good that we don’t know your child. It means they don’t get in trouble.”

When any parent walks in my child’s high school, there is someone in that office who knows exactly who their child is and they see a whole person instead of good or bad. When my son graduates one week from today, I will miss his school and everyone in it. Before the school opened, I would bristle at people describing the not-yet-open school as Hogwarts because of the uniqueness of the building. “It’s not magic. It’s science.” Now, I still know that they were wrong about the building possessing magical qualities. They didn’t realize that were correct about the people in that building. It is a special place and we were privileged to be a part of it.