Goodbye to the Halls That Raised Us: A Farewell to Christa McAuliffe

A Bittersweet Goodbye: The Heartfelt Farewell to Christa McAuliffe

Some goodbyes feel too big for words. This is one of them.

Hearing that Christa McAuliffe Middle School — the school that shaped so many of us — is officially closing and being sold feels like the end of a chapter we didn’t expect to turn. This wasn't just a building with classrooms and lockers. It is the place we grew up in — where we laughed, learned, struggled, blossomed, and became ourselves.

And now it'll exist only in memory.

Christa McAuliffe: The First Step Toward Who We’d Become

Christa McAuliffe wasn’t just a middle school — it was a universe unto itself. That’s where we learned how to be brave in new, unfamiliar ways. Switching classes for the first time, dealing with the awkward chaos of adolescence, navigating friendships, crushes, and cafeteria dynamics like it was a social obstacle course.

We were young, and most of us were still trying to figure out who we were. But Christa McAuliffe gave us space to do just that. It gave us structure, and a little freedom. Teachers who saw us as more than kids. Staff who remembered our names. Hallways where we first felt a strange sense of independence, even if we still asked for a pass to use the bathroom.

Named after a woman who believed in dreaming beyond Earth itself, this school reminded us — even if we didn’t realize it at the time — that we could aim high, and that we were capable of more than we thought.

The Weight of Letting Go

Hearing that Christa McAuliffe is being sold is… hard. Not just because of what’s being lost, but because it feels like a final goodbye to a version of ourselves we’re not ready to part with.

There’s sadness in knowing that building won’t echo with the same sounds anymore — no more locker doors slamming, sneakers squeaking in the gym, laughter bouncing off the walls during passing period. Future students won’t know those spaces. They’ll be turned into something else — something without the history we carry in our hearts.

But there’s a kind of peace in knowing those memories are untouchable.

They live in us now.

What We Carry Forward

We carry the lessons — not just from books, but from life. We carry the faces of the people who helped shape us. We carry the halls, the classrooms, the inside jokes, the heartbreaks, the wins, the failures, the late-night texts about group projects, the butterflies before big games, the quiet moments we didn’t realize would one day mean everything.

We carry the school with us, even as the doors close behind us.

With Gratitude and Love

So thank you, Christa McAuliffe Middle School. Thank you for being our training grounds, our safety nets, our proving grounds, our home. Thank you for giving us the space to grow up — awkwardly, messily, beautifully.

You may be closing, but your impact is lifelong. You raised generations of kids, and each one of us carries a piece of your legacy forward.

This isn’t just goodbye. It’s thank you. It’s we’ll never forget you. It’s you’ll always be with us — every time we pass by, every time we remember where we came from, every time we see a class photo or hear a familiar song from hallway speakers.

It’s sad. But it’s also beautiful. Because if something hurts this much to lose, it meant something real.

Here’s to the school that made us. You’ll always be more than just a building. You’ll always be home.

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A Personal Note from me:

It’s hard to put into words what it feels like to say goodbye to a place that shaped so many of our early memories. My middle school is officially closing and being sold — and with that, it feels like a little piece of my childhood is being boxed up and carried away too.

Those hallways weren’t just walls and lockers. They were where friendships were built, where we grew from awkward kids into young adults, where we laughed too loudly, cried in bathrooms between classes, and learned not just from textbooks, but from life itself.

Every classroom held a different version of who we were becoming. Every teacher, every teammate, every late-night rehearsal or early morning game added a chapter to the story.

Knowing that future students won’t walk those same halls is heartbreaking — but the memories? They’re untouchable. Forever ours.

Here’s to the place that gave us roots.

With a full heart,

Abbey Korzonowski