In the final weeks of the Charlotte Latin School academic year, graduating seniors reached out to eighth graders — not just making cross-divisional connections between the class of 2026 and the class of 2030, but bolstering the mental health of the Middle School students and preparing them for life in the Upper School.

The outreach, spearheaded by Wills Hutchinson ’26, Jackie Rao ’26, Wesley Seagraves ’26, and Henri Snoots ’26, was emotional and vulnerable at times — and valuable for both the eighth graders and the seniors. The younger students received essential knowledge, while the older students were able to pass on their hard-won experience, thereby investing it with greater meaning.

Seagraves reported:

After the passing of a senior at a neighboring school, we had the opportunity to speak at an Upper School community meeting, where we shared the importance of speaking up when you're struggling, along with all the resources there are in Upper School if one is struggling. We got a lot of very positive feedback from administrators and students, and were asked to go speak to the eighth graders about the same thing so that they would have a preview of information regarding mental health help in upper school. 

Jackie Rao and I spoke to the eighth grade girls, while Henri Snoots and Wills Hutchinson spoke to the boys, and after that, we split them further into advisories, still divided by boys and girls, and more Upper School students went in to talk individually with the students. Both times we met with the students were very conversational. While the focus of us speaking to them was mental health and the importance of speaking up, a lot of what I talked about with the girls was just the transition to high school. 

When we opened up the space for them to ask questions, there wasn't a second of silence. They asked about grades, how late you stay up doing homework, what homecoming is like, how friendships change, everyday high school life. 

I felt like our conversations reached a lot deeper and hit closer to home because they were centered around the everyday. While I wasn’t expecting that switch, I’m so glad it happened because I think it was a lot more valuable then it would’ve been for us to go talk AT them. Instead the girls wanted to build relationships with us and learn more about how their next years would look, and I loved that. It allowed for an open dialogue about all things high school and it allowed us as seniors to pass forward the wisdom we've gained in our experiences.