Most of the kids have been together since they started school. Indeed, Greg Moffitt, the principal of the elementary school told me that this continuity is highly valued in Winters; when the town grew enough to warrant having two elementary schools, they decided that rather than split the kids into two different schools, they would split the campuses instead into sites K-3 and 4-5, thereby keeping the kids all together. Moffitt is principal of both.

The high schoolers said their knowing each other so well—all the foibles and moments (good and bad) since kindergarten—has made them close and accepting of each other. If the occasional bullying comes up, they told me, it is normal for them to take initiative themselves and stop it in its tracks, with what they described as a “we don’t do this here” sense.

I was struck by a kind of judgment-free nature of these kids. They come from a variety of socioeconomic beginnings and upbringings: children of custodians and professors, of fruit packers, warehouse workers, librarians, mechanics, corrections officers, and managers. Some knew exactly what their parents did for a living, and others weren’t quite sure of the companies where their parents worked. Some lived in blended families; others not. They were of means or of very little means. Some were first-generation Americans, and others' families went very far back. All this was described in candid terms; they all seemed to know most everything about each other already; none seemed to express any judgment one way or another on each other’s comments. This struck me as a rare expression that can’t be taught but must simply be experienced to attain.

Being high schoolers, the kids also had a wry sense of their life in small-town Winters. They could detail all the changes: “It was a big deal when they took out the blinking light and replaced it with a stoplight!” one described, detailing the ceremony involved, with much of the town in attendance. And “Dollar General is coming! And a hotel!”

“There used to be cool things here,” one said, and they all added to the list: a train, a movie theater, bowling. The students described their school as the proxy for all those experiences now. “School activities keep us real busy,” they agreed.

The students also chronicled the improvements in the schools on their watch: younger kids getting iPads, advisories in the middle school. And they decried that they would miss the renovation of the high school (sorely needed to the 60-year-old structure.)

There is more improvement to come. Paul Fawcett outlined some of the prospects underway: cooperation with Solano Community College, just up the road, to have a presence on campus, which would offer courses to the high school students (and other town residents) for college credits; a greenhouse for the ag programs.