Good Afternoon,

Autumn Hendrickson, who is graduating this year from Reading Memorial High School sent a letter to all Reading Public School staff thanking them for everything that they have done.  I have received permission from Autumn to post her letter on this blog.

To all of Reading’s amazing teachers and staff members,

I never thought this would be what the end of my senior year of high school would look like. I don’t think any of us, seniors or not, did. When I first came to this school district as a little fifth grader, I had yet to meet an adult who I trusted and who liked me for no special reason. I was a very broken child. When I found something or someone I liked, I clung onto it for dear life out of fear that it would be taken from me somehow. It was in the hallways of this town’s schools that, for the first time in my life, I felt loved by adults who had no reason to love me other than that they just did. It wasn’t really until my sophomore year of high school that I was able to shake the notion that the only reason why these teachers liked me was because they didn’t know me the way my adoptive mother did. If she told them who I really was, then they would all hate me.

These past seven years in the Reading Public Schools have felt like one long growth spurt for me. A lot of pain, a lot of hurt, but so much joy, and so much happiness, and so much of that safe, loved, warm feeling. What a way for it to end, eh? Ending some of the most challenging but rewarding years of my life in the middle of a global pandemic. Tough luck, I guess. My adoptive dad always said, “Tough times make brave people,” though.

These past few days, though, I have felt myself overwhelmed with pride, oddly enough. To be honest, at first, I didn’t really know why I felt that way. It wasn’t until Wednesday (June 17) that I finally realized that I was feeling proud of all of you. Proud to know so many of you, proud to have sat in your classes, proud to have been a part of your district, proud to have walked your hallways, and proud to be able to say that I was my whole, complete, unapologetic self while I was in your charge. But I was even prouder of all the stress and hard work you put yourselves through during this whole age of COVID-19 and school closures.

All the videos that you made for your students and school communities telling them how much you missed them, the elementary school teachers parading through their students’ neighborhoods to let them know they were not forgotten, the Adopt a Senior page and all the love and acknowledgement me and my fellow classmates received from teachers who we probably hadn’t talked to in years, the Senior Parade that so many of you showed up for, the daily updates of what you had been up to with your family during quarantine, and the constant check-ins. You, the teachers of the Reading Public Schools became a little bit of everything your students needed. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t do it perfectly, you did your best.

As this school year ends, I want each and every one of you to know, regardless of if I have ever sat in your class, that I am proud to be able to say I was a student in your district. And I thank you. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it were not for you. I am a product of the love, care, and thoughtfulness provided to me by your teachers and administrations. And I am not the only one.

Sincerely,

Autumn Hendrickson

Barrows Elementary School (Class of 2013), Parker Middle School (Class of 2016), Reading Memorial High School (Class of 2020)