It’s been St. Mary's all the way

By Tanya Connor  | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – Graduation can be bittersweet, a time of treasuring memories and hoping to maintain what you gained, while heading off to new adventures.
This seemed to be happening to three seniors at St. Mary’s Schools as they spoke with The Catholic Free Press shortly before their graduation. Twins Wandzia and Teresa Prytko and their friend Ashley Parker had been in the school together since kindergarten.
Their principal said that’s reflective of a new trend there.
The students expressed appreciation for the school’s Catholicity and small size, which played a role in college choice.
“If I went to a different school I wouldn’t be myself,” Wandzia said. “I feel like St. Mary’s has made me who I am, through the morals.”
“Through the teaching of good morals,” expounded her sister, Teresa.
“I can’t even say how I changed, because this is all I know,” Ashley said.
“It made you, not changed you,” Wandzia said of the school. She said she especially liked the environment, the community.
“I also like wearing the uniform, because you don’t have to decide what to wear every day,” added Ashley. And Wandzia said she’d grown comfortable with uniforms; she got used to wearing them.
The teachers go the extra mile; “we know them personally,” the Prytkos said.
All three girls agreed that it’s beneficial that St. Mary’s is small.
“Going off to college, I first wanted the Catholic environment,” Wandzia said. And a smaller environment, like St. Mary’s. She didn’t want to be in a class with 500 students. So she’s headed for Assumption College.
The other two are staying together, going to Worcester State University.
“It’s hard to believe we’ve been together since kindergarten,” Wandzia said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without Ashley’s constant singing.” They said they were all in choir and drama, but Ashley got into it more.
“It’s interesting to see how many people have come and gone,” Ashley said. “Our kindergarten was 20 or more students. We’re the only three left.” One of the 13 in their graduating class joined them in first grade, one in second grade, and the others came on board in middle school, she said.
“I personally never left because I had all my friends here,” she said.
St. Mary’s is like a family, Wandzia said.
“Accepting,” added Teresa.
“I feel like whenever anyone comes into our class …” Ashley began, and Wandzia finished, “you always welcome them with open arms.”
Ashley said she was excited at the beginning of the year that it was their last. She couldn’t wait to move on. But, as graduation loomed, she changed her tune: “I don’t know what I’m going to do without these people.”
“When we were younger we were terrified of the seniors,” because they were big, Wandzia said. “Now we’re seniors.” So they didn’t want to be mean to the little kids.
Ashley said the “little, little ones” – preschoolers – were afraid of them; “they just don’t know us.” But the seventh-graders were comfortable with them.
The three said they knew students in every class, and the Prytkos especially knew students in grades eight and 10, their siblings’ grades.
Asked how St. Mary’s has changed, Teresa said, “We do a lot more to put ourselves out there,” so people know about the school, which almost closed.
Adam Cormier, the principal, said a current trend is that students who come, stay. When St. Mary’s held graduations for those finishing grades six and eight, students started to look elsewhere for their next school, he said. Now the only graduation held is for 12th-graders.