A Love Letter to East Brunswick High School

By Rachel Botnick

Dear East Brunswick High School,

There is something very strange about walking through the halls of your old high school decades after you were a student there, especially walking through those halls with your own children.

A couple of weeks before the start of the school year, I toured East Brunswick High School with my daughters. I was amazed by how much came back to me and, at the same time, how much felt completely foreign. There were places that felt immediately familiar, almost like my brain knew where I was before I consciously did, and then with the turn of a corner have absolutely no idea where I was. 

It’s eerie how the mind works. You can go years without thinking about a particular hallway or staircase, then suddenly stand there again and feel something unmistakable. I realized that day that I didn’t just go to school there. A pretty significant part of who I am today was shaped there. And now my daughters are beginning their own high school experience in those same halls.

A few weeks later, I returned for Back to School Night. As a single mom of twins, following two schedules that are happening simultaneously requires either cloning or some kind of time travel, neither of which are skills I have yet to master. So instead of attempting the impossible, I volunteered at the PTA table.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I could have made. Instead of running from classroom to classroom, I got to sit still and watch the high school in action. I talked to parents, staff members, school resource officers and students. I watched completely confused parents trying to figure out where they were going and admit I was a little relieved not to be one of them. I watched students stop to help, staff interact with families, and administrators communicate with one another and work through the inevitable issues that come up when hundreds of people are navigating one enormous building at the same time.

One of my favorite parts of the night involved a group of cheerleaders assigned to our area. I first noticed them having this wonderful conversation with the staff at the Food Services table. They were asking about the menu, how things were chosen and about the individuals themselves. They were genuinely interested. It wasn’t forced or staged. It was just people talking to other people, and I loved watching it. An authentic moment captured in its true essence.

Later, I got to talk with the girls myself. They were at different points in their high school experience. Some were seniors, still buzzing from the excitement of the recent Senior Sunrise, while others were younger and just learning the ropes. For a few minutes, I got to see EBHS through their eyes. Some were experiencing their “lasts” while others were still collecting their “firsts.” Here I was looking around the building through the eyes of someone who had already lived her high school years there, while these girls were right in the middle of theirs, and through those same halls my own daughters will be navigating their own.

There was something both really wonderful and poignant about that.

Now, I am an educator, so I am not going to write a love letter to a high school through rose-colored glasses. I know high school is hard. Kids are balancing grades, friendships, social pressure, activities, family expectations and thoughts about what comes next, all while trying to figure out who they are and just survive. Teachers and staff wear more hats than most people ever see, and administrators balance the needs of students, staff and families while handling countless situations the rest of us may never even know occurred.

And EBHS certainly wasn’t perfect when I went there. The cliques were so obvious that the only things missing were Pink Ladies and T-Bird jackets. The stereotypes were there, along with a one-size-fits-all approach to education, the bullying, and homogeneous groupings that, looking back through my educator eyes, are actually pretty cringeworthy.

I also understand now that my experience at East Brunswick High School was exactly that. Mine. High school wasn’t a wonderful experience for everyone. It certainly wasn’t perfect for me. The same hallway that brings back a funny memory for one person may hold a painful one for someone else. Loving a place doesn’t require pretending it was perfect. Maybe it means believing enough in it to want it to keep getting better.

For all of its imperfections, though, there has always been something happening inside East Brunswick High School that is difficult to quantify. I keep coming back to the word “spark.”

Think about the people who have walked through those halls. They became doctors and hospital leaders, performers and writers, actors, broadcasters and artists, scientists and business owners, educators and public servants. Some reached the highest levels of their professions and had an impact across the country and around the world. Others made their impact right here. They took over family businesses, raised families, taught our children, coached our teams, cared for our neighbors, volunteered and became integral parts of the fabric of East Brunswick.

I don’t think we should ever minimize either kind of impact. We tend to measure accomplishment by how far someone’s name travels, but impact doesn’t really work that way. Changing something on a global scale is extraordinary, but so is changing the life of one child. Creating something experienced by millions matters, and so does building something that becomes part of the foundation of one community. Each adds something invaluable.

And every one of those people was once just a kid walking through the halls of East Brunswick High School.

That’s what gets me.

We have no idea where today’s sparks will travel. Some may illuminate the world. Some may illuminate East Brunswick. Others may illuminate a classroom, a business, a hospital room, a stage, a home or simply the life of another person. They all matter.

There is something especially powerful about that in a town with one public high school. Generation after generation of East Brunswick kids have passed through those doors. Some left and built lives somewhere else. Some stayed. Some left and eventually found their way home.

I did. And I know I’m far from the only one.

Things change. Education changes. Communities change, and buildings certainly age. The physical infrastructure of our high school needs attention, and I don’t want to minimize that. Our students and staff deserve a building worthy of what we ask them to accomplish inside it. But I also don’t want the condition of a building to make us forget what exists within those walls.

The heart of a school isn’t concrete, bricks, pipes or ceilings. It’s the student who stops to help a confused parent. It’s the teacher who notices something nobody else did. It’s administrators working together to solve a problem. It’s cheerleaders having a genuine conversation with the Food Services staff and actually excited about next week’s food theme. It’s parents who show up, graduates who come back, families who stay and a community that decides its children are worth investing in.

Maybe that’s the point of this love letter.

We can acknowledge what needs fixing. We can disagree about how to fix it. We can expect more and advocate fiercely for our children. We absolutely should. But while we’re doing that, I hope we remember that we also get to be part of what makes this place better.

There are sparks inside that building right now, and none of us knows yet what they will become. Let’s help ignite them instead of extinguishing them. Let’s be part of the magic.

Be a spark in the fire, not the water that puts it out.

So, East Brunswick High School, take care of my girls. Take care of all of our kids. Challenge them, see them, give them opportunities, let them make mistakes while providing a safe space to land, and give them people and experiences worth remembering. Help them find their spark, whatever it may be and wherever it may eventually take them.

You helped shape their mother.

Now it’s their turn.

Love,

An EBHS alum who found her way home