Why We'll Miss Mrs. Roberts—And Dahlia Heights: Part I

In a couple of weeks, my 10-year-old daughter leaves our local Eagle Rock public school, , for an all-girls private institution.

The decision to apply and the drive to complete the application process in the midst of formidable parental distraction was hers.

Although in the hottest weather she proudly sports a sweatshirt with her new school’s insignia; although she tells her friends about its beautiful campus—the luxuriant green space, the cafeteria, with freshly prepared foods, the new multi-million-dollar science building constructed to promote girls’ excellence in a historically unsympathetic field; although her new school will provide her with music and ceramics classes and all the psychosocial support a budget-starved public school cannot, she will miss Dahlia Heights.

And so will her dad and I. We will miss walking together to school every morning, as we’ve done for the past eight years. We will miss a school that teaches diversity by being inherently diverse—economically, culturally, spiritually. We will miss a school whose success is entwined with the spirit of parents who hawk packaged cookie dough to make sure kids can go on a field trip.

And we’ll miss seeing the neighborhood families. Our daughter will miss her friends. No less than any of those reasons to feel rueful, we will miss Mrs. Roberts.

Dianne Roberts was my daughter’s beloved third-grade teacher, the kind of teacher whom a child remembers for the rest of her life. She’s the teacher for whom children whoop when they find out they’ve been assigned to her classroom, the teacher for whom parents are grateful—and by whom it’s impossible not to be awestruck.

For years we’d heard both adults and kids crowing about Mrs. Roberts. Before my daughter was her student, Mrs. Roberts was a baffling sight to me on the playground each morning. While we frazzled parents struggle to assemble lunches and get our kids out the door and to school before the first bell, Mrs. Roberts arrives impeccably groomed and collected, a woman who is both beautiful and uniquely—perplexingly—competent.

To be continued.