27 Everyone in the Park School community has memories of Country Fair, many of them similar - for one, where else can one find such enthusiasm for a peppermint stick in a lemon? For Sue Wardynski, an early-1960s invitation to Country Fair was an introduction to the essence of Park, and the beginning of a lifelong commitment to our community. As a young parent searching for a standout school to send her three children - daughters Paula and Kasia, and son Skip - Sue was invited by a friend and Park parent to our annual fall festival, where she saw something special in an otherwise everyday occurrence here. “I watched a soccer game being played with a boy who was a student at Park School and had an infirmity, and he was part of that team,” Sue recalled in a family video chat from her residence in Sarasota, Florida, where she’s now retired. “That made such an impression on me, that this was a school that would really take care of students.” Soon after enrolling her first-born Paula in nursery school, Sue became a passionate advocate for Park, eventually becoming president of the Board of Trustees. “I fell in love with the school, the education - I felt so strongly that there were things they were teaching at Park that I did not think public schools could teach.” Sue was a full-time mother while her late husband Raymond worked for the now-third generation family hot dog and sausage business that made the Wardynski name famous.“I think my automobile knew the route to Park School all by itself,” she laughed. Paula, who graduated from Park in 1975 and then Bowdoin College before a career in finance in the media and entertainment industry in New York City, recalled a kindred spirit of inclusion. “I love that we had people of all stripes, going to school together day-by-day,” she said from her home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where she’s now retired with her partner of 28 years. “ It truly reflected communities at-large that one would eventually join. Park provided us with tools for use not only in our workplaces but also in our living environments..” Part of Paula’s appreciation for Park’s unique student body is the interaction across age ranges. ”I enjoyed interacting with the oldest students when I was three, four, five years old,” she recalled. “It sort of felt like I was in Munchkinland... the little chairs and tables in our classrooms, sized to fit us perfectly as we went about our activities in preschool. It wasn't until I was older that I could look back on it (with others in those seats) that I realized how well-sized they were for us back in the day.” Kasia, who also started at Park as a preschooler, concurred. “Senior Day I think is so important,” she noted, adding how she offered the experience to her daughter’s school as a model for student engagement. “The little kids really look up to the big kids.” As for that annual tradition of Country Fair, attendees in
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