Anna Palumbo

Interviewed by Bryen Fabry Dorsam in the fall of 2023.

When Anna finished grade school, the Chicago Waldorf High School didn’t exist.

“Everyone at Waldorf, when I was graduating [8th grade], had to go somewhere else.”

She looked at schools all over Chicago.

“I did a much bigger high school search than I did a college search!

“I took the tests, I auditioned, I put portfolios together for all these different places. I went to the Academy of the Arts because I really liked visual arts, and in the interview they asked me, ‘Besides art, what was your favorite subject?’ and I told them, ‘Math.’ They were like, ‘We’ve never had anyone say that in an interview!’

“Everything was so well-rounded here that I never felt like I was one or the other.”

She ended up attending Lincoln Park, but going to a large public school wasn’t exactly how she imagined it.

“Even though you’re in a bigger environment, it doesn’t always make it easier to find your people.”

In fact, she says, due to the tracking system, where students are put on a very particular academic path, she didn’t end up seeing most of the other students anyway.

“It was this huge school with all these kids from Cabrini Green, kids coming from all over, from these magnet programs, and it’s cool! You’re this big melting pot. But in reality I saw the same group of kids going from my honors classes to my honors classes. There were all these kids that I didn’t really interact with, because we were tracked.”

And the opportunities offered by a larger program weren’t always available to her.

“I never got to play sports in high school. I went to try out for the basketball team and I was like, ‘Oh, no. This is beyond me. I’m not cut out for this.’”

But, by the time Anna was getting ready for her senior year, things changed at CWS.

“They formed a committee to start the high school. My senior year was going to be the first year.”

The trouble was, Anna was going into 12th grade, and we were only offering 9th and 10th grades. But that didn’t stop her.

“Me and three other students, we all asked if we could come back and be part of it even though there wasn’t a class for us, because we weren’t happy where we were. So we were all a part of the tenth grade.”

She took the Art and English credits she needed and graduated that year as a part of our first, if unconventional, senior class.

Looking back, Anna’s time in public school helped give her perspective on what made her Waldorf education special. She still has the block books she made in grade school.

“Whereas I spent three years in public school and I have nothing to look back on, because I would hand the textbook back.”

When she went to college, she chose a small school, which gave her the space to experiment in the ways she wasn’t able to in her large public high school.

“I went to a tiny school and they needed lacrosse players ­- and I’d never even seen the game played - and I got to play for all four years!”

In typical Waldorf fashion, she pivoted from studying drama in high school to majoring in Physics in college. Now, she’s a barber.

“I wanted to do something practical. I’d thought about cutting hair all the time. I cut my friends’ hair in college, but I never took it seriously.”

While she doesn’t regret going to public school, a CWHS education might have given her more opportunities to explore her interests.

“I wish high schools in general did more talking about vocational schools and not just all college prep. I didn’t think that was an option for me. I was a smart kid, so no one ever talked to me about going to cosmetology school.”

After working in salons and cutting hair out of her home as a new mother, Anna has started her own barber shop in Evanston with a childhood friend. There, she gets to hear about other people’s high school experiences.

“I talk to so many kids now and they’re all taking a bunch of AP courses and it’s really stressful. What’s the endgame?”

Like many other alumni, Anna has chosen to send her children to CWS, partially to avoid the “boxed in” feeling she felt in her own high school education.

“All the kids get to do everything. They all do art and music and everything. […] There are a lot of opportunities, a lot of different things you can try. You don’t have to be tracked.”