Palisades High School opened in August 2022 as the world was emerging from the COVID pandemic. Most Palisades students had moved from Olympic High School, as had their principal, Erik Olejarczyk. With 10 years of service, he was known to the students and to families, which helped them tackle the new school year together. 

“Those were interesting times,” he said. Now almost four years later, that first freshman class will graduate on June 13 at Bojangles Coliseum. Their principal couldn’t be more pleased.

“I have to say I’m incredibly proud of our student body and all the classes that have come through Palisades because I feel like everybody, all the students and especially this senior class, being that they’ve been here for all four years, has embraced the opportunity of Palisades – creating a new culture, a new identity and one that’s just positive,” Olejarczyk said. “We have great students, and it’s because that’s what they wanted it to be.” 

High schools open their first year without a senior class. Olejarczyk said the 11th graders, who formed the first graduating class the second year, set the tone for the school. But subsequent classes have built on and expanded the foundation they created every single year. 

For Jade Mungai, attending Palisades in the first freshman class was exciting, but she still felt anxious. She hadn’t had a good experience in her first year of middle school (also a new school), “but the first month here, I was already challenged with academics. I was being pushed, but I was excited, and I was really happy about that.”

Mungai used three words to describe Palisades:

• Adventure | “I feel like adventure is when you’re going through every different stage of your life in your four years of high school, and you never know what to expect, but you can always turn to a teacher or a friend, and you feel like you’re on that journey with them. You’re never on that journey by yourself.”
• Rigor | “I want to say rigor because we have offered so many different levels of classes, and there’s no teacher that’s just going to let you go astray. They’re always going to push you to be the very best that you can be and that they know that you can be.”
• Homey | “I want to say homey because you become close with your teachers. The people at your school genuinely become your family.”

Mungai said Palisades has established some great traditions, and she knows that each future class will contribute something new. Earlier classes paved the way for leadership opportunities, and she said most students are friends with everybody, regardless of grade level.

While leaving Palisades “is truly bittersweet,” Mungai said she is happy to move into the next phase of her life. She plans to study neuroscience and political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and gives credit to Olejarczyk for making Palisades both challenging and fun.

“My parents are the strictest people I’ve ever met, and they are a big fan of Mr. O and all the things he has put in place to make our school the way it is now,” she said. “Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better principal than Mr. O.” 

Olejarczyk said Mungai’s experience reflects what he wanted for the Palisades campus from its inception. He said he’s grateful to be able to serve his students and for the mark they’ve left on their community that will continue for many years to come.

“I do want this campus to feel like home and to feel like a family, and I think my most important job is for all 2,500 of my students to feel accepted and to feel like they have a safe space,” Olejarczyk said. “If they feel they can connect with adults and go to anybody within the building, then once you take care of that aspect of the child, the sky’s the limit.”