What’s recently happened?
As the school year at La Lumiere (La Lu) School came to its end, the plethora of activities and traditions were abundant as ever. With the upcoming prefects being announced at the beginning of May to senior traditions such as Senior Candles to ending the year off with the 57th annual Commencement ceremony, the Lakers had a busy May.
As the new prefects were announced, they took on their leadership roles quickly. With the new Residential Life Prefects Firdavs Sharifov and Casey Van Eekeren creating weekend activities, and the new Fine Arts Prefect Elliott Hall helping out with Fine Arts Week, the prefects are having a great transition into their leadership roles.
A beloved La Lu tradition, Senior Candles, also took place in May. Senior Candles are a great time for seniors to recognize two underclassmen who they feel will spread the light in their years to come at school. Senior Candles is a tradition that has happened for decades and is beloved by so many alumni as one of the highlights of their La Lu experience. Former Head Perfect Semeon Chachanko started off Senior Candles as the head prefect always does.
“I love having the opportunity to see what all of the seniors think of the underclassmen,” said Sophomore Erin Morrison. “It is really cool to see who they feel will live their light in the years to come.”
On Field Day, the Lakers competed in a wild event of Head’s Cup activities. Going into the competition, Teams Moore and Webster knew they were only in competition for third and fourth place, however, that did not stop them from ensuring Team Sullivan did not win. With both Team Moore and Sullivan tied with six total wins, Team Moore was persistent in ensuring Bunting would take home the win this year. Head’s Cup is a school-wide competition with four teams (Bunting, Sullivan, Moore, and Webster), that compete in year-long competitions.
What’s coming up?
While the students return home after graduation, La Lu does not slow down in the summer months! With summer camps and freshman experience happening over the summer, along with orientation week at the beginning of the school year, summer is still a very busy time for the school.
Each summer, La Lu offers summer camps for sports such as soccer, basketball, and tennis. Current La Lu students also attend the camps to both help the coaches and provide the campers with a memorable experience.
Rising Senior Danny Murray is on the Varsity White National Basketball Team and has helped out with the basketball summer camps the past two years. Murray, originally from Long Island, New York has attended La Lu since his sophomore year. He loves all aspects of La Lu from becoming friends with people all over the world to Family Weekend. He has come back for the basketball camps over the summer because he loves to teach the kids in the La Lu community how fun basketball is to play.
“It’s so much fun to help the kids in the community learn how to play basketball, while making it fun,” Murray said.
Freshman Experience is also another favorite tradition of many La Lu students. Freshman Experience is a week-long program at the beginning of June that allows incoming freshmen to both meet each other and learn what life at La Lu is like. This is done through a series of mini-classes, ice breaker activities, sport introductions, and Head’s Cup activities, along with the trip to the beach to end off the week.
Over the summer, the planning begins for the orientation week that starts each school year. Orientation week includes the four days leading up to the school year and is filled with an abundance of activities such as grade and Head’s Cup competitions, along with mini classes and teacher introductions.
Community member spotlight:
Bridget Sendziak, originally from Buffalo, New York, has been a French teacher at La Lu since 2020. Before La Lu, she was living and teaching English in France after graduating with her second master’s degree from the Catholic University of Lille.
Sendziak currently lives on campus at La Lu, and along with being the assistant Girls Soccer coach and mentor for the Global Community prefect board, she also enjoys dog walking over the summer.
In the spring of 2023, Sendziak, along with Teachers Brett Balhoff and Sarah Berndt, took 20 students to France on a study-abroad Spring Break trip. During the trip, the students spent four days in Paris, two days in Lille, and one day in Bruges, Belgium. Throughout the trip, the students had the opportunity to see iconic French monuments such as the Tour Eiffel, l'Arc de Triomphe, and le Louvre, along with experiencing life as a native Francophone in Lille.
“The students at La Lu make the school what it is. The students are always the ones to make me laugh when I have a bad day, and they are such good people,” Sendziak said. “On the France trip, we were constantly having to rebook tickets and hotels, but the students were so unbelievably flexible with the whole situation. It was a true bonding experience.”
In addition, Sendziak is a Bookstore Basketball extraordinaire. Bookstore Basketball is a three-week long competition in between the fall and winter sport seasons where intramural teams of three compete in a single-elimination tournament to see who is the best. In her first year at the school, one of Sendziak’s students from Rwanda who spoke French invited her to be on his team, and they made it to the Elite Eight.
“I found it incredibly thoughtful that he agreed to play with me just to have fun and so I could have the experience,” said Sendziak. “I think I may have scored one basket. These are the types of kids who make up the La Lu community.”