‘Made me a leader.’ Why this Palisades High senior is just fine in uncharted territory

Nadia Sesay is comfortable in uncharted territory.

The soft-spoken, upbeat senior at Palisades High School is a first-generation American, the daughter of immigrants from Sierra Leone and spent Saturdays during her childhood listening in on her family members’ meetings with immigration lawyers.

Now, she wants to become one.

“Less than three generations ago, the women in my family didn’t even attend school, so being a first-generation American is a huge honor for me,” Sesay said. “From the time I was a little kid, I’ve desired to be in that space where people can come to me and I can help them.”

Sesay is among 412 students comprising the first graduating class of Palisades High School. On June 11, she and her classmates will be the first people to walk across the stage with a Palisades diploma.

“We really are everything coming together in CMS from completely different backgrounds: there are people from Olympic, Harding, East Meck,” Sesay told The Charlotte Observer. “There are people from rivaling high schools now going to school together.”

Starting high school during a pandemic

This year’s graduating seniors started ninth grade online during the 2020-2021 school year. They are first class to enter high school remotely after the pandemic started. It changed everything.

“For me, everything felt a little delayed,” Sesay said. “My tenth grade year felt like ninth grade, in terms of my social learning.”

Sesay told one teacher before she came back to in-person school the prospect of seeing her old peers again made her nervous. She’d forgotten how to talk to people.

“You know, learning things about friends or peers or the opposite sex – there really are such fundamental milestones that you have throughout high school, and I feel like that was a little delayed for me and I can only imagine others, too,” Sesay said

In August 2022, Palisades High School opened its doors. It was built to relieve overcrowding at surrounding campuses like Olympic High School, where Sesay started her high school career. It represented a new beginning for those moving to Palisades.

“We have diversity that I don’t think we even had at Olympic,” she said. “Even if you look out in the parking lot, I have a friend that drives here every day in a Tesla, and then there are people that have hand-me-down, hand-me-downs …”

With this patchwork of experiences comes the challenge of creating a shared identity.

“You hit roadblocks and obstacles as you work to find your identity and who you are because we all came from different places,” said Palisades principal Erik Olejarczyk, who previously had been the principal at Olympic High School. “They had different identities of what it meant to be an Olympic Trojan or a Harding Ram, and now they had to figure out what it means to be a Palisades Puma, and that’s something that was a challenge because it’s outside their comfort zone. And our staff was experiencing the same thing.”

A unique graduating class

Olejarczyk told his staff ahead of the start of this school year they were entering their “second first year,” as the school continued to shape itself. This year was the first time the school had students in all four grade levels.

Sesay says the process of creating Palisades has been largely student-led, with the help of administrators who empower them to make their visions a reality. Sesay is also the senior class president and involved in Model U.N. and the school’s Christian club.

“I think the main way we’ve done that is with events and organizations, just making sure we’re engaging the student body and evaluating how they feel,” Sesay said.

There are already 41 clubs and organizations at Palisades, according to the school’s website. Most of its students came from schools with around 20 clubs.

“My role as principal was to remove the obstacles and empower the students to create opportunities to build culture through clubs and other events,” Olejarczyk said. “I think the majority of our students are really starting to understand what it means to be at Palisades and the majority of our clubs are very successful.”

He says the senior class is largely to thank for the surge in student engagement.

For example, the class wanted a prom last year, despite not having a senior class — or funding for the event — at the time. Instead, they planned fundraisers themselves to collect the needed cash and ultimately were able to put on the event.

“I think this senior class has done a remarkable job of setting up this culture and creating a legacy that will transcend the rest of the years that Palisades High School is standing,” said Olejarczyk.

Sesay admits she wasn’t ready to leave Olympic when she was rezoned to Palisades. However, she said the change has shaped her. And she’s not alone.

“There wasn’t anything established when we got here, so we really had to do it ourselves. I do think that it made me a leader,” Sesay said. “When you look at our school, a lot of the main leaders at this school weren’t necessarily leaders at Olympic. I think it’s really brought the leader out in everybody.”

Sesay plans to study political science in the fall at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.

For law school, she already has her sights on Syracuse University, the University of Georgia or Columbia University, but she says, when it comes down to it, “only God really knows.”