When Loretto High School announced its closing, Facebook overflowed with comments from students about how they were losing a “second home.” I thought this was a bit of an exaggeration. I mean it’s just a school, right? 

My opinion changed when I learned that our own high school would be moving to a new location.

That’s when I realized that Country Day is my second home. Every part of this campus holds a memory made during my last eight years here. 

And now, for my senior year, I could be somewhere different where I will have to make new memories. Yes, it will still be “Country Day,” and, yes, the teachers will still be there, but that doesn’t mean it will be the same. 

I know that change is inevitable and the high school cannot stay on Latham Drive forever.  The school made an agreement with the city of Sacramento that it would eventually move.

And the new buildings are beautiful. Headmaster Stephen Repsher couldn’t have chosen a better replacement. But the old campus will still be greatly missed. 

Junior Lynsey Chediak has attended SCDS since kindergarten, and now she may not be able to graduate from the school at which she grew up. 

“They just ripped down our buildings with no consideration for any of our memories,” she said.  “First they tore down the lower school, soon the middle school, and now we are getting booted out of the high school. 

“Not just memories will have to be recreated. Traditions will also die.

One of the biggest events of the athletic calendar is the fall Homecoming that begins with an all-school pep rally.

At 6 p.m., faculty, parents, students, brothers, and sisters gather inside the gym to watch the varsity girls’ volleyball team.

Then, at 7 p.m., everyone flocks to the field to watch the varsity boys’ soccer team play under the lights while spectators eat hamburgers.

Next year, what will happen? How can we have all-school pep rallies when the high school is no longer connected to the lower and middle school?

A pep rally with just the high school alone would not be as good. There would not be as many attendees and no more cute screaming little kids.

Olympics Day was an event welcomed this year. It was a fun way to begin the school year. But now will it be able to become an annual tradition? 

Without a field, where will we conduct the sponge toss or feed pudding to our friends? And what about the giant water fight to top off Olympics Day? Can we soak the inside of a building?  

The separation of the high school and lower and middle schools raises other problems as well. 

Last year, math teacher Patricia Jacobsen started Peers Mentoring Peers, where high-school students have a 7th grade buddy and periodically spend their lunch with them. Now, according to Jacobsen, PMPs will transform from high-school students mentoring middle-school students to upperclassmen mentoring freshman. 

I like this idea, but I will miss mentoring the 7th graders. 

Tutoring also posses a problem. Many high-school students, myself included, tutor middle-school students during a free period. 

I earn about one hour of community service per week by tutoring an 8th grader in math. I was hoping to continue tutoring students next year because it is something I really enjoy. 

Chediak raised another important issue: what will happen to the yearbook? 

“With our limited elective period, it is already hard to get pictures and quotes from the middle school and lower school students. If we move campuses, it will be close to impossible,” she said. 

Couldn’t the high school have its own yearbook? Chediak said it would be too small, especially for any awards or recognition.

Loehmann’s Shopping Center is one benefit of the current campus that everyone is bound to have a difficult time parting with. 

Every day on my way home from school I see lowerclassmen walking to Loehmann’s. When I grab something to eat at Jack’s or Chipotle, I usually see an SCDS student. 

Another benefit of this campus is the American River. A highway surrounds the new one. 

Over the years, the high-school campus has accumulated many senior gifts. What will happen to them? Will the previous classes’ presents to their school be left behind in the move?

For example, the class of 2007 made the cement handprints that are displayed around the little Fels/ Neukom Amphitheatre off the quad.  

But of all the potential changes, receptionist Erica Wilson will be the most missed. She is the heart of SCDS. It’s hard to imagine walking into a front office and not seeing her sitting behind the desk. 

“It will take a while getting used to. It would be a hard change since I would miss all the high-school students,” Wilson said. 

McNally could not have summed up this campus move any better.  “After 13 years of going here, it just seems like a pretty disappointing way to say goodbye.”