Milton’s boarders can and should become more integrated with day students by staying at school throughout the day, without an option to return to their room. This policy would create a more lively and full campus, but I do recognize it would bring a huge change.
Like boarders who decompress in their dorms, I often decompress by listening to music on the bus back to home. Nonetheless, the community remains the main priority during the school day. While boarder-specific traditions like dorm dinner and dodgeball rightfully build a “home” for boarders at Milton, we would all build a wider community together if we were all “at school” throughout the day.
When I was applying to Milton, I envisioned myself spending the day learning and laughing with people from all around the world. A critical part of Milton’s uniqueness lies in the globally diverse boarding community that lives and learns alongside day students from the Boston area. While I really enjoy that mix of perspectives in the classroom, I believe Milton ignores an opportunity to connect boarders and day students at other points in the school day, especially considering that boarders and day students journey to different spaces during their free time: dorms and the Stu or library.
The diverse array of people brought together by Milton was a crucial factor that drew me to the school. In last week’s pickleball tournament, while rallying with people at both the beginning of the learning curve and the end, I found myself proud to belong to a school where connections between such different types of people prove possible. Every English class, I sit amazed by how the different experiences of kids from Paris, San Francisco, and Shanghai affect our interpretations of Robert Frost. Nonetheless, as soon as the class discussion ends, boarders and day students too often part ways.
The unstructured time students spend together makes up part of Milton’s special atmosphere. We go to lunch or clubs, we hang out in the Stu, and we have free periods. During their free time, a day student, looking to lay down their weary head and study, heads to the library, the Stu, or the Skills Center. Searching for a snack, they might make their way to the Snack Bar or the Bookstore or maybe DoorDashes to the Stu or Quad. These are all shared spaces, designed for strengthening the community, and in my first few months at Milton, I have enjoyed bumping into classmates in these spaces and joining in those unexpected conversations.
Our boarders, though, have an additional, more private space for snacks, a study session, or free time: their room. We generally wouldn’t expect day students to go home in the middle of the school day, even during free time. My suggested approach means that neither boarders nor day students could opt out from the community during the school day. Of course, boarders and day students come together beyond the classroom in other ways like clubs, teams, and events on the weekends. However, spontaneous friendships and connections happen during unstructured free time during the school day. Similarly, the administration should also explore combining boarders and day students in advisory groups as Stables has begun to conceptualize, but that topic deserves its own article.
All of Milton’s students should “go to school” together for the entire day. This continuity prioritizes building an inclusive and integrated community while also recognizing that boarders and day students experience Milton differently. We do and should have separate spaces “at home.” But during the school day, we should dare to be together, as one community, at school.