The Connection

Laughter and tears filled the auditorium of Bryant Alternative High School on Thursday, June 15. Guests, faculty, and students’ speeches filled the air that mixed with the excitement of the graduating class of 2017.

Bryant serves students who may not have been able to meet their fullest potential at their original schools due to employment or family responsibilities. In Bryant’s auditorium, every family cheered as their children, grandchildren, friends, and relatives became a high school graduate.

Bryant’s graduating class had 83 students.

Seniors Gabriela Argueta and Talia Hall detailed their experience at Bryant. Argueta, an Annandale resident and recipient of the Outstanding Art Student Award, said, “Making the wall” was her favorite memory at Bryant. She speaks of the mosaic that hangs outside the school walls which took the students “about a month to make. We started last month [May] and finished last week.”

Argueta felt that it was her favorite memory because “they all worked on it together, it really brought us together as a Bryant family.” Argueta’s classmate, Hall, also felt the same way regarding the atmosphere at Bryant.

“It’s just like a giant family, honestly,” Hall said. “I’ve never gotten that from any school I’ve been to before, and as soon as I came here I made friends, people welcomed me quicker than I thought they would.” Although both girls had positive experiences at Bryant, they feel great about graduating high school, and have plans for their future.

“NOVA for two years and then George Mason,” Argueta said about the local colleges. She plans on studying criminal justice with hopes of becoming a police officer.

Hall, an Alexandria native, is taking a year off but plans to do an apprenticeship during her gap year with the artist Ali Mirsky who worked with Bryant students on the mural.

“[Art] has always been something I wanted to do since I was little, I’ve always been into art,” Hall said. “My mom finally told me, ‘I don’t know why you don’t do something with art when you graduate.’ I didn’t think she would be OK with it. Parents want their kid set on one thing and you have to do this, you have to be a doctor. But, my mom said, do you what you want to do as long as you’re happy.”

Bryant’s graduation was full of students similar to Argueta and Hall. Throughout the graduation speeches, students thanked parents for supporting them and also their grandparents. They thanked partners and they thanked specific teachers.

Carrie Van Brocklin, an English teacher at Bryant, expressed the same love for the students and for the school itself. “I like the small class sizes and the ability to really get to know the students. Many of them have struggled with so much in terms of being young parents or their parents are in jail,” Van Brocklin said.

Many students who go to Bryant have the responsibly of having to behave like parents either to their siblings or other family members; the students persevere to succeed. Bryant not only offers scholarships and extra help, it also has programs like Project Opportunity which is dedicated to helping young mothers at Bryant. In some cases, some students can’t return to public school because they have had a child so this program gives these women a second chance. Project Opportunity not only helps the students take care of their babies during school but the program has connections to local businesses and churches that donate diapers and formula, which sometimes the young moms need and can’t afford.

Bryant offers smaller class sizes, a maximum of 18 students per classroom, which gives students the attention they need and one-on-one instruction. After graduation, students either go into a four-year college, to Northern Virginia Community College, or go straight into the work force.

Graduation is a celebration for the next step of life or just a celebration of being done with high school, but to Bryant students and faculty it’s more. Van Brocklin said, “Bryant graduation is special. It’s a celebration because so many of these students have had struggles to get to this place, either academically or in their personal lives. It has changed my life teaching here. I love it.”

Ali Mirsky, an artist from Ashton, Md., was hired to help the students create the idea for the mosaic and she provided the materials. According to art teacher Rachel Krieger Albert, the meaning behind the mosaic is, “Really thinking about representing the different destination goals and the fact that we all achieve those goals and destinations by following different paths. The abstract idea really resonates with the students’ love for graffiti style of art.”

The creation of the mosaic was done completely by Bryant students who donated approximately 100 service hours to the project. It took five weeks to complete and through fundraising like a Go Fund Me page, the students reached the goal of raising $8,500.

The students began creating the mosaic after spring break on the large white retaining wall facing Popkins Lane.

“I’ve driven by the wall every day for 11 years and it just felt like there was a new energy this year with the school and the great group of students, so let’s do something ambitious and it was just time” to do it, Albert said.

The mosaic doesn’t stop here, according to Albert, the goal is to continue the mosaic around the blank wall next semester.