Alumni Network

This is an abridged version of Dr. Dan Ratner’s speech at the 2021 Harvest Homecoming benefit. You can find the full 5-minute version here.

A short documentary by Laila Christian, who attended Hanna Perkins School as a young child and is entering her junior year at Shaker Heights High School, has been selected to be featured in a virtual documentary showcase by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Titled “Communication in Song: How Lady Day Paved the Way,” the video runs just under 10 minutes and … [Read the rest]

By Austin Ratner

When I entered the Hanna Perkins preschool in the 1970s, I was more than a little afraid. I’m sure I clung to my mother as you might to a tree in a tsunami. My father had just died, and throughout my childhood a separation or an unfamiliar place would often stir up a tragic feeling.

The first thing I remember about Hanna Perkins is that I had no need to hide such feelings there. Like the big world into which I was taking my first small steps, the feelings themselves were very big, sometimes unpredictable, and “hard to manage,” as I recall some preschool teachers putting it. They understood feelings and honored them by acknowledging them, and by granting a child a little bit of sovereignty … [Read the rest]