Alumni Spotlight: Orly, PCS Class of 2025
Ask Orly, PCS class of 2025, how her freshman year at Mattituck High School is going and she'll tell you about the Honors English class she's loving, the school play she's rehearsing for, and the volleyball team she almost didn't try out for — and then, without missing a beat, she'll bring it back to where it all started. "PCS has and will always stick with me," she says. For a ninth grader navigating a big new school, Orly's is the kind of transition PCS families hope for.
That hope is also, for many PCS families, a quiet question: will the intimate, nurturing environment of a small independent school translate into real preparation for the pace and structure of a larger, more traditional high school? Orly's first few weeks at Mattituck answered that pretty definitively. "PCS teaches you how to soak up all the information without even noticing it," she says. "You have the thought process, you have the ability to connect information — you have it all, even if you don't think you do. And that is the beautiful thing about PCS."
Orly graduated from Peconic Community School last spring and has already made her mark at Mattituck. Recently named Student of the Month, she's moving through her freshman year with exactly the energy you'd wish for any kid: curious, confident, engaged, and genuinely enjoying the ride.
"[At PCS], they teach you how to love learning to a point where it's not something you have to do — it's something you want to do," she says. And that love of learning is showing up everywhere in her freshman year — in the Honors English unit on argument and persuasive writing where she immediately felt at home, in the Algebra class where her teacher's organized, transparent approach has made the material click, and in Chorus, where she's pushing the boundaries of her musical range in ways that have surprised her.
And when it comes to Honors English, she knows exactly who to thank. "Shout out to Ms. Brenna for teaching CER — claim, evidence, reasoning — even with all our protests!" she says. "It has helped so much." Ms. Brenna, who teaches grades 6 through 8 at PCS whose leadership is one of the program’s cornerstones, has spent years giving her students more than content knowledge — a rigorous, transferable framework for engaging with ideas and expressing them with clarity and confidence.
For Orly, that framework is paying dividends in real time. She walked into high school already knowing how to build a case, marshal evidence, and make herself heard — something that was put to the test almost immediately. "In my English class, we had to give a presentation in the first week about ourselves," she says. "Being the new kid, that was really 'fun' — but having public speaking skills beforehand helped me in my confidence. I was able to get up there and give it a shot." It's the kind of moment that would rattle most new freshmen. For Orly, it was just another opportunity.
At PCS, the middle school program asks students to do genuinely challenging things. Through real-world community internships, capstone projects that require students to pursue a topic deeply and present their findings publicly, and leadership initiatives that put them in genuine positions of responsibility, PCS students arrive at high school having already proven something to themselves. They know how to manage a long-term project, how to stand up in front of an audience and make a case, and how to lead. That kind of experience doesn't just prepare students academically — it builds the kind of confidence that shows up in unexpected places.
For Orly, one of those unexpected places was the volleyball court. She had never played the sport before, and she was walking into a school where she barely knew anyone. She tried out anyway.
"I usually shy away from physical activities, but I decided to give it a try and I really loved it," she says. "I made new friends, learned about a sport that was completely new to me, and learned how to work with brand new people in a team-style setting. It really built up my confidence when entering a completely new school."
It's the kind of moment that speaks for itself — a student who has been trusted to lead, challenged to think, and supported to grow, stepping into something unfamiliar and finding her footing with ease. That's what PCS builds. And Orly, with a musical under her belt, a new school play coming up, a Student of the Month designation, and a whole lot of high school still ahead of her, is living proof.
Curious about the PCS middle school program that helped shape Orly? Join us for our upcoming Middle School Preview Night to learn more about our internship program, capstone projects, leadership initiatives, and the community your child could be part of. Tuesday, March 31, 5:30pm in the PCS middle school classroom.