Celebrating Spooky Season across the HRA Community: Lower and Middle Schoolers Get in the Halloween Spirit

At Hampton Roads Academy, “we do a lot of great, hard, rigorous academic work,” said Director of Lower School Susanne Swain ’78, “but we also believe that the year needs to be punctuated by some fun.”

There are few times of year when this celebratory spirit is more palpable than in October. Following on the heels of Homecoming weekend, a collection of grade level-spanning traditions allows HRA’s Lower and Middle School students to embrace the fun that is synonymous with Halloween while bringing the school community closer together.

This year, the Middle School held its annual Halloween Happenings costume party, organized by the Student Council Association (SCA), on Friday, October 24. Over the course of the evening, according to Middle School math teacher and SCA faculty sponsor Liesel Sorensen, the students “let their personalities shine through games, costumes, dancing, and food” as they “created connections beyond the formal classroom setting.”

One week later, HRA’s Lower Schoolers marked the holiday with their much-anticipated Halloween Parade, a tradition that turned 15 this fall. Decked out in their costumes, the students marched throughout the main floor of the building as their teachers, families, and older peers cheered them on. After the morning parade, the youngsters enjoyed autumnal activities and snacks at classroom parties organized through the efforts of their dedicated room parents, led by Lower School Parents’ Association representative Brynn Beal.

With students, faculty, and parents all leaning into the joy of spooky season each year, HRA’s Halloween celebrations remind every member of the community what it means to be part of the Navigator family.

A Happening Party

First celebrated ten years ago in the Multi-Purpose Room and now held in the state-of-the-art Mary and Larry Pope Dining Hall, Halloween Happenings is a perennial highlight of the HRA Middle School calendar. Overseen by Sorensen and her fellow Middle School SCA sponsor, history teacher Kerry LiBrando, with help from the English Department’s Karen Massengill, SCA members in Grades 5 through 8 took leading roles in planning and carrying out the evening’s events, keeping a cherished tradition alive.

“Being together in a fun setting, organized in large part by students themselves, is a wonderful opportunity to reinforce their connection to all their Middle School classmates,” said Interim Director of Middle School Karen Gillespie.

Middle Schoolers from all grade levels eagerly seized this opportunity. Surrounded by spooky decorations and a playlist of their favorite songs, the students had a blast participating in scavenger hunts and minute-to-win-it competitions, spanning such challenges as mummy-wrapping, blindfolded cupcake-decorating, and moving candy corn with only a straw. Even the faculty chaperones, inspired by Middle School science teacher Bridgitte Ferguson, got in on the fun, donning cheeky “Haunted by 6-7” T-shirts, a play on the ubiquitous Generation Alpha meme.

The festivities culminated with a costume contest, in which eighth grader Tanner Luckenbach ’30 took home the top prize for a suit of Star Wars scout trooper armor that he 3D printed himself. Sisters Sydney ’33 and Marin Mazzurco ’31, dressed as Glinda and Elphaba from Wicked, won the award for best group costume. Other prize winners included Blaine Averett ’30, whose homemade goat mask was voted most artistic; Alex Nguyen ’32, whose butterfly costume was designated most beautiful; and Spyro Zichal ’33, whose plague doctor outfit won the award for scariest costume in the room.

“The students showed impressive effort with their costumes,” said Middle School English teacher and faculty chaperone Tina Silberhorn. Halloween Happenings, she explained, “gives students a chance to express themselves, collaborate, and celebrate school spirit in a relaxed, fun way.”

According to LiBrando, such outlets are a vital aspect of the Middle School teaching and learning experience. “Any time students get to bond together in person is a highlight,” she said. “We as faculty get to see a different side of them when the pressure of the school day is off. Childhood goes by so fast, so having an event where they can be silly together—that our Middle Schoolers help plan and run—is the best.”

“We Do It for the Sake of Community”

Like the Middle School’s Halloween Happenings, the Lower School Halloween Parade is a tribute to this joyful holiday as a quintessential childhood experience with unique power to strengthen students’ connection to their school, their teachers, their families, and one another.

To kick off this year’s march through the Academy, all Lower School students, dressed in their costumes, lined up in the dining hall by grade level, with the youngest in the front and the fourth graders in back as the “caboose.” Then, at 9:15, the parade officially began. Led by pre-kindergartener Lily Grace Haynes ’40, showing school spirit in an HRA cheerleader uniform, the students processed into the Lower School Commons and around the perimeter as their families cheered them on from the center of the room. The parade continued through the Middle School, the Upper School, and the administration hallway, allowing faculty members and students from the other divisions—many dressed up for Halloween themselves—to watch the youngsters and join in the celebration.

“We do it for the sake of community,” Swain said of the annual tradition, which she described as “a great way for the Middle and Upper School kids to get to know the faces and the spirits of our little ones.” The Lower School director explained that sharing the young students’ enthusiasm for the costumes into which they had invested so much effort is an invaluable bonding experience uniting all three divisions.

Halloween at HRA plays an equally important role in deepening Lower School families’ sense of connection to the Academy, as parents both planned and attended the classroom parties that followed the parade. Changing out of their costumes and into festive orange outfits, the students enjoyed such treats as Pirate’s Booty, fruit, and decorated doughnuts, along with seasonal activities like pass the pumpkin, rainbow scratch mask-making, and Halloween-themed games of bingo and charades.

“These class parties build fun memories for our kids and also allow for parents to join in on the fun, which I think means so much to our kids when we can show up,” said third-grade room parent and HRA trustee Nora Rule, mother of William Rule ’35 as well as Middle Schooler James Rule ’33.

Inspired by the commitment of volunteers like Rule, who has now served as a Lower School room parent for five years, Amanda Prohaska, mother of first grader Jayden Prohaska-Moon ’37, decided to take on the responsibilities of a room parent herself this year.

“This is such an amazing school, where parents are very involved in the education and overall growth of the children from a very young age,” she said. “I feel the school’s theme of ‘Year of Connections’ is very fitting, as it embraces the home and school to ensure every child is seamlessly supported throughout, and being a Lower School room parent allows me to contribute to this support.”

Welcoming families into the Lower School for celebrations of Halloween, the December holidays, Valentine’s Day, and the end of the academic year, according to Swain, “helps us to partner with them—to be better joined together for the best interest of the child.” With more than 70 new families in the Lower School this year, these special occasions are as crucial for the HRA community as ever.

“Making [families] feel included,” Swain explained, “is essential to our success. Involvement is key.”

Indeed, as the Lower School room parents and the Middle School SCA members who planned Halloween Happenings know well, this fall’s festivities brought the Navigator community together not only through fun, but also through service.