Regardless of if students went to Lakewood, DuFief, Fallsmead, Travilah, Cold Spring, or Stone Mill, they all report the only difference between elementary schools is friend groups.

The main impact elementary schools have on development is around the friend groups that form. Friend groups may stay all the way until graduation from high school. “Most of my friends I’ve known since kindergarten,” sophomore Yeshetila Tafa said.

While kids may meet their best friends in elementary school, others meet them in high school or middle school. Friendships can be formed at any point in someone’s life, not just in elementary school. “Although I do still have friends from Fallsmead, most of my friends I’ve met either at my middle school, Frost, or here at Wootton,” sophomore Olivia Resnick said.

Because the experience of students is so similar in terms of the academic development of students at all feeder elementary schools, the real emphasis becomes the people the students are around, and those people dictate the experience they have. “I liked my elementary school experience from the teachers to classmates; I wouldn’t wish anything was different,” Tafa said.

The reason that friendships get stronger over time is because the longer you’re friends with someone, the more memories you make with them and the more you bond. When people become friends in elementary school they often have up to 10 years of memories by the time they reach high school. “I would say I have more friends from Lakewood as I’ve known them longer and it’s easy to relate to them as we had six years to make memories,” Tafa said.

Students may feel that if they changed their elementary school experience, they wouldn’t have created the lifelong friendships they did. “I do not wish my elementary school experience was different as it is where I met most of my friends,” Higgins said.

Although it seems like people can form strong friendships wherever they go, people argue that if they went to a different elementary school, their friends would be significantly different, and many argue worse. People think that all kids are the same, however, that may not be true. “I don’t think if I went to another school I would have built just as strong friendships as it would have been different people who might not have anything in common with me,” Tafa said.

The elementary school strives to teach education, life skills and other important skills, but as reported by students, the biggest impact they have isn’t in the school’s control, it’s in the students. “My elementary school experience did a lot to help me gain social skills and Fallsmead was a great start to my journey in education that I believe still affects me now in high school,” Resnick said.

Others argue that teachers do have a large impact on development. When you’re young, you’re impressionable, which means you follow the behaviors of those you look up to. “My teachers did have an impact on my development since childhood is where you really start to gain traits and personalities,” Tafa said.