The Blake Upper School students, faculty, and staff watched the 45th Presidential Inauguration live in the Juliet Nelson Auditorium in between morning and afternoon classes.

Some students decided to exercise their right to walk out of the assembly, writing a letter to the administration beforehand about their reasoning. The letter was submitted to Spectrum, and can be found here: https://www.blakespectrum.org/blog/2017/01/20/students-pen-letter-to-the-administration/.

Bag lunches were distributed and students were allowed to debrief, formally or informally, around the school immediately following the viewing of President Trump’s address. Social Studies teachers–for example, David Graham and David Zalk–were open for more formal discussion while other teachers made themselves available around the school in common areas. There were also affinity group meetings during the time period, including Cornerstone and GSA.

Many congregated in the mini-gallery in the arts hallway, where Drawing and Painting II students along with Bill Colburn created a place for members of the community to finish the sentence, “I am…” with art or words. There were many avenues of processing the inaugural address around school before returning to class at 12:10.