08/19/2026
With a fresh new school year coming soon, Head of School Gabe Burnstein shared his reflections in a letter to families.
"Riding my bike with friends in the heat, already sticky hot at 9 in the morning, my destination was undecided. My family had no idea where I was or what time I was coming home, and it was awesome. I was with my friends, and I was free. This was also completely normal.
In these moments, for ten-year-old me, it felt like summer would last forever. Even in early August, school was a thousand years away. I had so many cannonballs left at the Central Middle School pool. There were so many fireflies to try and catch, so many Matt Christopher books left to read (IFKYK), and so many nights where my sister and I stayed up covering our mouths because we were laughing so hard and didn’t want to wake our parents. We were in sleeping bags on their bedroom floor (my father called us “rug rats”) because their room was the only one in the house with air conditioning. And while my back hurts just thinking about sleeping on the floor now, it felt special then because we only did this on those extra hot summer nights smack dab in the middle of a Michigan summer.
Time really did move differently in summer as a child. And it lasted longer.
And I know what you’re thinking: Like my son Moses who has recently taken to saying, “Okay, Grandpa,” when I tell a story from the 1980’s, what does any of this have to do with, like, modernity? You’re thinking that I might as well be describing the 1880’s when looking at childhood through a 2026 lens.
But in childhood, summer always has the potential for magic. Time still operates differently when you are four or eight or thirteen, and children feel older and like different people when they arrive back at school in September, because they are!"
Read the full essay here: https://www.charlesriverschool.org/news/welcome-back/
