Washington, DC
Friday, July 13th

For all of you paraskavedekatriaphobics this is a bad day, so I wish you all the best. It only seems fitting that today we took the students to see Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix. Why see a movie? The students who have been working particularly hard this past month needed to relax on their last full day of the program. I have too shamefully admit that this was my first theater watch of Potter film and really the first time I have watched one through in its entirety, lots of HBO starts and finishes. I really enjoyed it. The hard core Potter fanatics stated the movie was OK but like most of them it does the book no justice. There are limits because of the Rowling’s book mammoth size.

The rest of the day they will be packing and cleaning up their space. While this is going on the staff will conduct an exit interview with all the students in order to give the program a proper evaluation. It is always important to see what did and did not work so changes can be made were necessary. I wish more schools/programs did this in order to get a true view of how they were doing. Their were a few typical responses such as more free time and one ridiculous that stated that we should have cable TV and video games available. In the end the overwhelming responses were positive. One girl stated that she learned more in this month than she in her last three years of high school. She felt her high school robbed her. I’m not sure if that is because her high school is that bad or SPS is that good. It probably is an even measure of the both.

SPS 2007

In the evening we had our final dinner and graduation at the Cathedral College of Preachers which is located on another part of the Close of the National Cathedral. It hosts various religious programs and is quite beautiful. It was a fantastic dinner. The students and faculty gave thanks and toasts to each other. We then watch a slide show set to music done by the director. There were plenty of oohs and ahhs, a good deal of laughter, and a few tears shed. It was a very nice way to end the program.

Walking into the Cathedral College of Preachers
Walking up the steps near the National Cathedral

The final dinner

The students were given free time after the evening program. Most went to Thomas Sweets a great ice cream spot in Georgetown. The kids like it because it gives them a place to hang out. Al of them were home by curfew, midnight. It is a testimony to the kids at this program that the biggest discipline problem was a student playing too many online games at night and falling asleep in class. (We unhooked the router at midnight each night) Guess which kid that was. Judging from Friday evening’s goodnight session tomorrow is going to be a very emotional day for many of these kids.