by Rachel Themistokleous ’26

For four years at Sherwood, I was told that my voice mattered. We took surveys every year, in which we answered questions about our environment, our experiences, and our learning. We had representatives, assemblies, and systems designed such as SGA and SMOB to amplify student voices. On paper, it sounded like we were being heard. But somewhere along the way, I stopped believing it. 

It wasn’t one specific moment but rather a continuous pattern and intensification of unheard voices. You start to notice when feedback disappears into nothing, and the same problems come up again and again. When teachers who have been at the school for decades say there’s always been mold in our walls, and just to brush it off. How the infrastructure has been breaking down for years, but how you’ll get used to it. Over time, it starts to feel less like you have a voice and more like you’re being asked to pretend that you do. At first, this realization was quite frustrating and started to become very discouraging. Eventually, though, it just felt normal. And this is what stuck with me the most. Not that I didn’t feel heard, but how easy it was to stop expecting to be.

But if anything, feeling unheard forced me to think about what having a “voice” actually means. I used to think it meant being listened to, seeing change, and making an impact. While those things do matter, I’ve also started to realize that having a voice isn’t defined by how others respond to it but by whether you still choose to use it–even if you feel ignored, even when nothing changes right away, even when the system isn’t built to listen.

The truth is, there will always be spaces where your voice feels small, and you feel discouraged to speak up because you think your opinion doesn’t matter. High school just happened to be the first place where I really noticed it. My biggest takeaway from these four years isn’t that student voices weren’t heard but that I learned how important it is not to lose mine anyway.