Hey Seniors! With the school year coming to an end, North Star News wants to hear what the Class of 2020 has to say about their high school experience. This is a chance for you to bid farewell to Niles North. You can use this space to recall your best memories, thank staff members, give a shout out to a friend, wish well to the rest of your graduating class, and/or give advice to the underclassmen. Please take a few minutes to reflect on these past four amazing years and share your thoughts! 👏 (Still need to write yours? No problem! Click here.)

Samantha Mae Fajardo:

I had the pleasure of working with Girls Who Play Sports through our athletic program and the volleyball program. We were given a lesson to teach, and that lesson was self-love. We were given a video to show the girls but watching a video doesn’t do the idea of self-love justice. After showing the video, I told the girls my journey about how I used to dislike who I was throughout high school and how I found myself through the volleyball program here at North. I told them to look in the mirror and say “I love myself”. Their reaction was something I wasn’t expecting to happen, these girls were crying with the biggest smile on their faces. Soon they started complimenting each other. Since then, I taught the idea of self-love among the underclassman in the girl’s volleyball program and that it’s okay to be frustrated at yourself sometimes. One advice I would give to the underclassmen is that it’s okay to lose yourself in high school or in life but just know you’ll find your true self. Another advice I would give is it’s okay to dislike who you are self-love doesn’t come overnight you’ll get there eventually.

Mariah Droszcz:

I want to wish that everyone does well in their career and also has a great future. Good luck to the class of 2020 and these past 4 years was great and I wouldn’t change it.

Gianna Agrelo:

It certainly was eventful even till the very end. I will always be happy I took the chance to try new things or participate in the most random activities. I won’t lie I’m happy to be moving on to bigger thing but will always appreciate the years where I met my closest friends and got over so many hills.

Misha Raykhlin:

To whoever reads this, I want to say thanks for all the fun I had this year. To all the fun classes and to all the good people I met, I hope they are reading this. I may not have been the most popular, nor had the largest friend group, but I appreciate everything I got from these past 4 years.

Ellie Henderson:

Niles North it’s been real it’s been fun but it hasn’t been real fun. Thank you for the past four years. The memories made will last a lifetime. Although it wasn’t the best four years of my life it was in those four years that changed my life. I am the person I am today because of the teachers and students at Niles North. I have been given the opportunity to interview people such as Jesse White, Brent Novoselsky, Tyrone Phillips and so many more amazing people. My junior year I had the opportunity to work with WGN to create a video for there team. At the beginning of my senior year I found my true passion and figured out what I really want to do in the future and that is teach and become an art teacher. I am going to miss seeing walking into the art room everyday and seeing Ms. Zwikel and Ms. Busch everyday in class. I will miss announcing basketball games. I will miss seeing my dad everyday in the hallways during school. Most of all I will miss what makes high school fun from clubs and activities, pep assemblies, school spirit weeks, homecoming dances, sporting games, raising money for Relay For Life. Can’t wait to see where the future takes the class of 2020!

Jacqueline Clark:

I can’t believe my time at NN has come to an end! I can seriously still remember my first day of freshman year, a small freshie not knowing anyone or where anything was. Skip forward four years, and now I’m leaving with so many friends and wonderful memories from my time here. I couldn’t have asked for better- better teachers, better classes, better friends. I am so grateful for all of the opportunities that I was given while in school, and I will treasure all the memories I made for the next four years as I embark on another adventure. I’m sad that we, the class of 2020, were not able to celebrate our prom or graduation in person, but I am so happy that we were able to celebrate our milestones throughout the year (like completing college apps- that was INSANE!). Before we all leave, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who had a hand in shaping us into the people we are today. You are all wonderful and will be truly missed!