The end of an era

St. John's School 2401 Claremont Lane Houston, TX 77019 review.sjs@gmail.com sjsreview.com

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Member National Scholastic Press Assn. Pacemaker 2015, 2018 Pacemaker Finalist 2019–2021

Best of Show Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2021

Member Columbia Scholastic Press Assn. Gold Crown 2015, 2020–2022 Silver Crown 2014, 2016–2019

Writing Excellence 2022 First Place Editorial Leadership (PSJA) 2022

SNO Distinguished Site 2018–2022

Print Editors-in-Chief

Wilson Bailey, Cameron Ederle, Diane Guo, Annie Jones, Alice Xu

Online Editors-in-Chief

Ella Piper Cla y and Dawson Chang

Section Editors

Abigail Hindman & Lillian Poag (News), Mia Hong (Mavericks), Lydia Ga ord (Culture), Richard Liang (Sports), Lauren Baker (Opinions)

Sub Editors Lily Feather and Serina Yan

Copy Editor Ellison Albright

Design Editors

Georgia Andrews and Amanda Brantley

Photography and Multimedia Editors

Lexi Guo & Isabella Diaz-Mira and James Li

Online Section Editors

Emma Chang, Aleena Gilani, Elizabeth Hu, Lucy Walker

Online Site Manager Arjun Maitra

Production Manager

Sophia Jazaeri

Sta

So a Aboul-Enein, Elise Anderson, Emma Arnold, Natalie Boquist, Finn Brewer, Kenzie Chu, Virginia Carolyn Crawford, Katie Czelusta, Eshna Das, Kaviya Dhir, Landon Doughty, Pierce Downey, Aien Du, Turner Edwards, Maddie Garrou, Nick Hensel, Aila Jiang, Kate Johnson, Julian Juang, Josie Kelly, Shayan Khan, Nathan Kim, Kenna Lee, Johnathon Li, Jennifer Lin, Jennifer Liu, Abby Manuel, Wade McGee, Lee Monistere, Parker Moore, Isabella Munoz, Ethan Nguyen, Riya Nimmagadda, Marin Pollock, Gabriel Pope, Dalia Sandberg, Jackie Thomas, Mark Vann, Justin Wright, Katharine Yao and Willow Zerr

Advisers

David Nathan, Shelley Stein ('88), Sam Abramson

Mission Statement

The Review strives to report on issues with integrity, recognize the assiduous e orts of all and serve as an engine of discourse within the St. John's community.

Publication Info

We mail each issue of The Review, free of charge, to every Upper School household, with an additional 1,000 copies distributed on campus to our 697 students and 98 faculty.

Policies

The Review provides a forum for student writing and opinion. The opinions and sta editorials contained herein do not necessarily re ect the opinions of the Head of School

This time of year, there’s a lot of talk about nality, especially for the graduating seniors. The nal time playing an organized sport, the long-awaited nal assignment, the nal time gracing the Quad.

For the graduating Editorial Board, it suddenly feels all too real that we have had our last Late Night or cold slice of Review Room Pizza.

While we will all have nostalgia for this place and these people, St. John’s has given us something more valuable than we anticipated as wide-eyed freshmen — the context and wherewithal to more completely understand ourselves.

Each of us in the Class of 2023 likely feels that we will be leaving St. John’s di erent, but better.

This is not only because of the worldclass education and seemingly unlimited resources that St. John’s provided for us — it’s because of the people.

St. John’s has assembled a graduating class that represents the ultimate breadth of thought and talent. SJS helped us sharpen each other, even when we did not want to be sharpened. Getting us to where we are now was possible because faculty, classmates and our families bought into it, and for that we are immensely grateful.

We’re a varied bunch and do not always share the same guiding principles or values. But we can always nd likeness as Mavericks in our mutual love for contribution and excellence.

The Editorial Board feels this way about our newsroom, in large part because of how personal language is. It can be di cult to be involved in another editor’s writing because their writing is a window into how they see the world — and we often fundamentally disagree on how that world looks. We have learned to be frank, to be empathetic, to have thick skin, and to appreciate each other — despite having di erent personalities, priorities and biases.

It is unlikely we will ever nd ourselves among a group of people who are both as excellent and as di erent as our cohort at St. John’s. The odds are that after graduation we will retreat to the company of like-minded people, spaces that are more comfortable than the ones we inhabited at St. John’s. While this might be a reason to mourn what we will soon lose, it is more appropriate to be thankful for

St. John’s — both because of what it has given us and what we have given each other.

We are leaving the place where we have grown up, but this is good news. There’s so much more to come.