After her day of being a shadow in the eighth grade, sophomore Nadaly Osenniy had made up her mind: She was going to choose La Salle as her high school.

While observing a typical school day, Osenniy saw how life went on around La Salle and loved it.

“When I shadowed La Salle, it just felt right,” she said. “I could feel the people having similar interests that I do, and it felt like everyone cared about each other and the teachers seemed like they prioritized our education.”

Osenniy defines herself as outgoing, funny, and as someone who adores her 13-year-old cat, Bella. But to sophomore Gabriella Matic, who has been friends with Osenniy since freshmen year, she is “a very exciting person — every single time she walks in a room, she brightens up the room with her amazing personality,” she said. “She’s super talkative, she’s hilarious … I’m very grateful that she’s my friend.”

Osenniy spent her middle school years at Holy Family middle school, a pre-K through eighth-grade school. She had been going since first grade, meaning that she was well acquainted with her classmates. 

“I felt like it created a family for me, and half of the class came to La Salle, so when I came here I already knew people, and I felt like the bond we had was already pretty strong,” Osenniy said.

But approaching the end of her eighth-grade year of schooling, the COVID-19 pandemic had become more of an issue, and quarantine officially began.

For her, it was challenging to transition to online schooling. “It was honestly more difficult than it should’ve been,” Osenniy said. “I felt like it was just so weird to transition back quickly from in-person to everything online because my school, we didn’t have a break like most schools did. We went straight into online after spring break, so it was kind of stressful.”

After middle school ended, Osenniy had to face another challenge: not only was learning still online, but at an entirely new school. She still had some friends from Holy Family, but settling into a new place was “weird,” Osenniy said.

Being back in-person full-time gave Osenniy the courage to branch out. Online learning stopped her freshman year, but now she’s stepping up. This year will be her first on La Salle’s tennis team.