To answer the question “Why I am giving to The Grayson School?” the answer is deceptively simple: “I give because I believe.” To clarify, a primary impetus for my support generates from one of my life’s guiding principles: I believe in the joy of a great education. My passion for teaching interconnects with my love of seeing children flourish. It is a heady and exhilarating phenomenon to be a part of a person’s learning process. And this phenomenon fuels The Grayson School’s very mission: Grayson is not only attempting to build and fulfill a critical educational need, but we are doing this act of altruism because we believe in these kids and in their genuine need to grow—and to flourish in a place that offers and cultivates enthusiasm, vivacity, and wonder. We want to build something that is desperately needed: a top-notch education for our future gifted leaders. I’m supporting The Grayson School because I believe teaching these children is a great and astounding act of optimism.
—Carrie Waldron-Brown, Head of Language Arts, Donor
I can actually come up with a lot of reasons why I drank the Grayson kool-aid, but until today when people asked where my son was going to school in the fall and I told them the Grayson school and then launched into the elevator speech about what the school is all about and why we chose it for him. And then I would wait for the look that comes so often after using the gifted word.
However, today, he was playing school, as he has been doing so often lately and I was listening intently. He set up his pretend friends and then uttered the most heartbreaking line to one of them. “I am worried that I won’t learn anything in school this year.” Here’s the thing that he doesn’t know quite yet though,…this is the last thing I am worried about. We chose the Grayson school because, without meeting a teacher, seeing a classroom, or even a school building, we know that he will learn a tremendous amount this year. Even more than that though, he will learn that he deserves to learn something every day, that he is valued and appreciated for who he is (and isn’t), and he will finally be surrounded by people who understand him. Do with that what you may, but I now have yet another reason that I drank the Grayson kool-aid and a really great reason to tell people why he’s going to Grayson.
—Parent of a Grayson student