Every year, all Parker eighth graders spend a day shadowing the high school, visiting classes and experiencing life in the Upper School. This year, significant changes were made to these shadow days — though eighth graders were still exposed to the Upper School and saw for themselves what high school at Parker is like, the programming was structurally different to what it has been in the past.

In earlier years, eighth graders were assigned a single student, who brings the eighth grader around to each of their usual classes. Now, eighth graders no longer have an assigned high school student, and they are given a schedule and tasked with navigating the Upper School and attending classes like a real high schooler. The schedule consisted of the classes they would attend, with names of teachers and room numbers.

The eighth grade is split up into two groups, for numbers reasons — one group shadowing on December 4 and the other one on December 11.

The decision to change the shadow days was primarily made by Siobhan Allen, Intermediate and Middle School Dean, and Chris Bielizna, Dean of Student life for the Upper School. Allen and Bielizna noticed that shadow days sometimes got centered around who the eighth grade student was shadowing and not enough around the actual classes.

“I think that this way was more about the classes than the distraction of who you are paired up with,” Allen said. “This allowed students to see the classes more, rather than get hung up on who they were paired with throughout the day.”

In the old set-up, moreover, hosts were not a great fit in every case. Bielizna said, “If a pairing is not so great for the day,” Bielizna said, “that can leave the student with a negative taste in their mouth.” Bielizna also noted that the change is not a reflection on recent hosts.

Eighth graders enjoyed the experience this year, but some noted a lack of face time and conversation with Upper Schoolers. “I loved shadow day, but I do think it’s kind of weird how they did it this year,” eighth grader Talia Holceker said. “It’s so important to have somebody you can shadow because it gives a more personalized experience.”

Eighth grader Eli Moog liked it. “I thought this was still good because you get a variety of everything, and you didn’t have a break,” he said. “But it maybe would have been nice to have someone that could help you along the way.”

Current freshman Olivia Lansburgh is ambivalent about the shift. “It was fun to have a Upper School shadow and get to talk to them,” she said about her shadow experience last year, “but I do understand where they are coming from with these changes.”

No shadow day will be perfect, so faculty and staff did their best to accomodate the needs of students. Allen said, “We knew there was going to be, regardless, some limitations.”

The schedule for the eighth graders was shifted to create more opportunities for conversation with Upper Schoolers. On the recent shadow day, eighth graders attended panels, where they met with Upper School students and could ask questions. These panels were made a formal part of the day, where eighth graders could get the experience of personalized conversation that they would normally get from a host.

Another benefit of having a host that was missed this year was that eighth grade students always knew where they were going. “My friends and I got lost a lot because we didn’t have somebody to bring us class to class,” Holceker said, “so that was a little bit of a downside on my experience.”

Nothing is set in stone for the years to come. “Every year is a test,” Bielizna said, “You do something, you meet beforehand and then you launch it and see what works and doesn’t work. To me, it feels like progress. It seemed to go very well, so I would imagine sticking with this format.”