Alumni Spotlight: Kai, PCS Class of 2022
We’re so excited to catch up with our civic-minded scientist, Kai Tvelia, PCS class of 2022!
Kai just graduated from Bayport Blue Point High School, Summa Cum Laude, with class awards in both AP Environmental Science and physics, and is now off to Binghamton University this fall to study biochemistry! He is one of five PCS alumni finishing high school this year, and we could not be happier to see him go on to study science at the college level, after watching him grow as a scientific thinker during his years at PCS.
Kai has always been drawn to science, and points to PCS for helping give that innate curiosity a place to take shape and a real academic trajectory. Through the trimester-long integrated units at the heart of our curriculum, Kai was able to dig deep into big questions in science and history that often lead straight to our local waters. For a future biochemistry major, those units were an early taste of science as a hands-on discipline, unfolding in the field and in the classroom. Kai felt it carry forward. “The PCS integrated studies units were very helpful going into high school,” he says. “The topics carried over into some of my classes.”
Kai has also always been as committed to his community as he is academically driven, and in high school he brought science and service together in the project that earned him his New York State Seal of Civic Readiness – a comprehensive renovation of the school’s greenhouse. It’s fitting work for Kai. The boy who threw himself into hands-on projects, unit after unit at PCS, is now a young man building increasingly more ambitious environments for living things to thrive. The fish tanks he always kept? The collection is now fourteen strong, with the largest a six-foot, 225-gallon tank!
Two parts of his PCS experience stand out to Kai as important preparation for his academic career, and the first speaks to something we love about our middle school. Through the internship program, Kai spent months working alongside community leaders and experts in North Fork organizations, including Hallockville Museum Farm, the kind of real-world learning experience even high school couldn’t match. “The internships I had during 7th and 8th grade were amazing,” he says, “and were not something I was able to do during high school.” The second is Spanish, which at PCS runs from Early Childhood through grade 8, even as some districts are dropping language education at the elementary level. Kai credits his early start, saying his PCS Spanish “put me at an edge across my first 3 years of Spanish” in high school.
Kai also played tennis throughout his high school career, noting that while he may not have been a starting player, he was happy to dedicate four years to a team that rose to second in the state among small schools this year.
It’s always kind of thrilling to see where our alumni students go and who they are becoming. We feel so proud to witness the care and curiosity that Kai carries with him as he heads off to college. He is exactly the kind of young person we hope to send out into the world, and we cannot wait to see what he grows next.