Gorski’s connection to Queen Anne School stretches back further than the average graduating senior, but he is not unique in having spent many years at the private school.
Nearly half of the 35 graduates in the Class of 2008 entered the school in the sixth grade, the earliest level it offers, Headmaster Temple Blackwood said.
It helps to have students for all seven years because ‘‘our curriculum is rigged to build on itself,” especially during the transition from middle school to high school, he said.
‘‘You can do so much more with students if you have them longer and they’re in your program,” said Jimmie Gorski, Albert’s mother.
Jimmie Gorski, now retired, worked for 35 years at Queen Anne School first as an English teacher and then in administration. She said the caretaker’s wife would look after her son and the children of other teachers during the day, and that Albert would come to her classroom after school when she provided after-hours help to students.
‘‘The school is very much a family,” she said.
Graduating seniors said spending seven years at one school helped them bond with each other and with teachers.
The relationship students build with teachers is ‘‘the best thing that could happen to you,” said senior class president Erin Michelle Gillum, who started at Queen Anne in the seventh grade.
‘‘It’s going to be hard to leave them,” she said.
Senior Sydney Michelle Gibson, who entered the school in the sixth grade, said that being there from the beginning helped her progress through the years.
‘‘It’s a smooth transition to high school. You get a sense of community when you’re here that long,” said Gibson, who was this year’s salutatorian, or second-highest graduate.
French teacher Delia Stark agreed with the students.
‘‘I think it’s a place where children can flourish among people who’ve seen them grow from little sixth-graders to a graduating senior,” said Stark, who has been at Queen Anne School for 14 years.
Gorski, who is going to study computer engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, is one of the students Stark said she saw flourish.
‘‘He never lost that strong drive to excel,” said Stark, Gorski’s academic advisor during his seven years at the school. ‘‘I’ve seen it develop over the years.”
Blackwood said that while administrators prefer to keep students from sixth grade through graduation, there is added pressure to perform because of the high cost of tuition.
The graduating class produced 15 National Honor Society members and three Cum Laude Society members, administrators said. All 35 have been accepted into four-year colleges, and have reported being offered at least $355,940 in total scholarship money.
‘‘You have to answer to parents investing $17,000 for sixth-graders when they come out at graduation,” he said.
E-mail Andy Zieminski atazieminski@gazette.net.
