I recently emailed our alumni to tell them about our upcoming 30th Anniversary Gala; we were very fortunate to have almost the entire first class of 1979 with us for our 25th anniversary, and I am hoping that even more of our alumni will join us for this year’s anniversary festivities.
I received a reply email from Anne-Yoshie Narahara, who was part of the first class in 1979, and who was in attendance at our 25th Anniversary Gala. Anne-Yoshie’s story is really quite amazing. Her father is Japanese, her mother French, and she (as well as her brother Christophe) attended ISTP/PFAS (Peninsula French American School) for elementary school. Anne-Yoshie has lived all over the world and currently lives and works (for Apple, Inc.) in China.
She wrote to me that one of her colleagues at Apple (whom she worked closely with in Beijing) is looking to enroll his daughter at ISTP. This brought a smile to my face, because it reminded me just how interconnected we all are. Imagine, one of our alumni — who’s life journey now finds her in China, worked with a colleague in the Silicon Valley, and they both knew of and spoke fondly of ISTP!
Anne-Yoshie wrote, “it is still incredible to me to hear how famous our little school in Palo Alto has become!”
Although we are not so little anymore, and we’ve grown to span across two campuses with over 560 students enrolled in two immersion programs and an international middle school — one thing still remains true: we leave a profound and lasting memory on our students. What they experience here affects their lives forever — and apparently, wherever they go, they carry us with them.
