By Eliza Ridgeway

Joe Hu/Town Crier Los Altos School District Superintendent Tim Justus listens to Egan Junior High eighth-graders present their accomplishments.

Egan Intermediate School’s annual rite of passage, Portfolio Day, has become a tradition for eighth-graders heading off to high school. The graduates assemble “collected works” that demonstrate their accomplishments in junior high and formally present a portfolio to one or two adult interviewers.

Parents, school district employees, city staff and local business representatives gathered at Egan June 8 to bear witness to the students’ academic and social journeys.

“The portfolios are a great way for kids to self-direct a presentation of their two-year experience at school, and look holistically at the experience,” eighth-grade English teacher Katie Beman said.

Presenting their achievements to strangers gives students a first taste of job interviewing, Beman said, while the positive focus makes everyone feel good.

“The students look forward to it,” she said. “In junior high everything changes so fast, it’s important to stop and contemplate what you have done.”

Nastia Scharrenberg wrote in her letter of reflection, which leads off the portfolio, that as a newcomer to the United States, learning English was a big part of her Egan experience - but so were drawing, growing to like math and trying out new sports.

Students spoke with confidence about their strengths and poked fun at some of their early efforts.

“I really like science - it’s my forte,” Davis Beckstead said. His portfolio demonstrated that school is about a lot more than grades; he spoke about family accomplishments and essay topics relevant to teenagers. He held up a string to demonstrate the 8 inches he has sprouted in the last two years.

Katelyn Stangl soldiered on through her presentation despite almost losing her voice, and the tall volleyball player cracked a grin as she talked about her fondness for funny poems.

Angela Liu opened her presentation with the gross-out anecdote of her seventh-grade frog dissection, then took her rapt audience on a tour of poetry and prose she had written and collected. “This short story was so much fun that it only took me three hours to write 10 pages,” she said of a futuristic work included in her portfolio. In the story’s imagined future, hair and clothing can be manipulated at a glance and a paranoid president rules the nation with tyranny.

The presentations were as casual as the students and listeners wished, with back-and-forth questions, jokes and observations. At the close of the day, each adult wrote notes to the students he or she heard, describing some of the strengths they witnessed - in poise, humor and eloquence.