Ruby albert

Over the six years I spent at Palisades Elementary, I explored every inch of the campus, spending recesses with my friends looking for secret spots. But my favorite spots on campus were in plain sight, both outside the school.

The first, two large brick ramps and a staircase in the middle, on the side of the school. When I was 8, those brick ramps looked giant, and the short staircase to the top seemed like an impossibly long hike. After weeks of discussing with my childhood friends and building our courage, we finally asked our parents to let us stay late after school, and spent over an hour running up and sliding down that ramp. Although looking back, it may feel small, in that moment, I felt as if I could conquer anything. Over the next few years of elementary school, I slid down those ramps more times than I can count. Even near the end of fifth grade, when any adrenaline I felt faded, the afternoons spent playing on those ramps with my friends were some of the happiest moments. Although I soon outgrew them after leaving Pali, and my elementary school friends drifted, every time I passed by those ramps on my way home from middle or high school, looking at them and the memories they brought always made me smile.

The second spot was the statue of the Pali Elementary dolphin, which would constantly get stolen or knocked over. While I loved seeing the statue standing, whenever it was missing, I would stand inside the tiny metal fence surrounding it, pretending to be a statue. It may seem silly to me now, but I truly felt like I embodied the dolphin. I loved my elementary school, and standing in that statue’s spot made me feel like I could truly represent it well and sparked a lifelong obsession with dolphins and other sea creatures.

Palisades Charter Elementary School will always be my favorite school, and despite what has happened to the school and my distance from it now, I will forever be proud to be a Pali Dolphin.