Masterman School: A Home Away from Home

On Friday, March 13th, students rushed out of the hallways, excited to be getting a two-week break after months of hard work. At 2:28 pm, all high school students were dismissed, except for the ones who had track practice. The track team consisted of about 20 students, kids who were not just gifted intellectually, but also athletically. Calder Burke, a sophomore at Masterman and an avid runner, laced up his shoes and was ready to meet on the patio with the team for what seemed to be a normal day of training. Their practice started at 3:15, and they were required to run around the block 20 times. That took the team about an hour to complete, so it was about 4:30 when practice ended and parents started picking their kids up. Calder went to text his mom but realized that he left his phone inside his locker, so he went back inside to get it. As he went inside, he heard the door close behind him, and also heard a lock sound. The custodians had finished cleaning as Calder was walking to his locker, and they locked the door for the night, the same as their everyday routine. Little did they know that they were not coming back to work for over a year and that they had left a student inside the building. Calder thought nothing of the lock noise, as there are always random noises around the school, like lockers shutting or cockroaches having family gatherings. He continued walking to his locker, and when reached it, he grabbed his phone just to find out that the battery had died. He wondered how he was going to contact his mom, but that was just the beginning of his problems.

Calder tried to walk back outside in hopes that someone nearby had a phone he could borrow, but the door would not budge. He went from the patio entrance, to the 17th street entrance, and he even went to the Brandywine entrance, but nothing was open. Over the next few hours, Calder tried screaming, kicking at the doors, picking the locks, but nothing worked. He had to face his fate, that he was stuck inside the school- at least until he found a way to charge his phone. But first, he had to get some food, as track practice had tired him out. He went to the vending machine in the cafeteria, paid a dollar, and bought some fruit snacks.

“I knew that the fruit snacks would fill me until I found a charger, but I had no idea that it would be impossible to find one,” recalls Calder. “The only charger I could find was an old Los Angeles Chargers hoodie in the lost and found, but nothing that could power my phone. From that moment I knew that it would be a while until I got out.”

And Calder was right, it would be a while until he left the building. It wasn’t until teachers returned to school this past week that he was found.

“They found me playing basketball on the roof, like I had done so many times to keep myself fit over this break,” Calder said. “Other things I did to pass by depended on the day. I attended virtual school- with my camera off- from the computer lab, but during breaks or after school I liked to do things like make some pottery with the clay in the art room, or lift some weights in the gym from time to time.”

Calder explained that the hardest part of this past year was not keeping himself busy, it was finding food on a daily basis. He describes his hunt for food: “For the first few weeks, there was actually stuff in the cafeteria, and the pre-packaged food in the kitchen lasted me until the summer. During the summer, I would just wake up late and have a few ice creams from the vending machine. Luckily, I figured out how to get the food without paying, otherwise, I would have been broke way before summer ended.” Calder detailed to me that he got his food by ramming into the machine hard enough so the glass could break. “It was dangerous, but it was my only option. I said I would sacrifice a limb if I needed to, as long as I got my food.”

When virtual school started in September, students were required to turn their cameras on unless there was a connection problem. The PhilaSD Wifi held strong, so Calder decided to turn his camera on. One of his classmates, Edvin Qinami, said that “The background seemed so familiar to me, I felt like I had been there before. But I’ve never been to Calder’s house, so I just thought nothing of it.”

“I never told anybody in class or anything because I didn’t want them worrying about me or trying to save me. It would have just been a waste of their time. My parents visited me plenty of times, I could hear them knocking on the doors from the cafeteria. I would always tell them that I was okay, but there was nothing they could do to get in. It’s fine though, after a few weeks I got into a routine,” Calder reminisces. Calder says that staying a year inside the building made him realize how much it has to offer. “We tend to bash on the building because it isn’t the cleanest or most modern, but I like it this way. Once you spend a while here you start to appreciate the little things. And the cockroaches aren't too bad once you get to know them.”

When the building doors opened on Monday, Calder was grateful that he could go back home, but he was also grateful for the building he had stayed in throughout the past year. “It provided me with food, drink, shelter, and I got to take part in so many fun activities with the whole school to myself. It’s definitely nice to be back home, but now I have to deal with my family,” Calder says jokingly. “It wasn't nearly as bad as I would have assumed if you told me I was going to spend 400 straight days inside Masterman. If anything, I got to know the school better, and I’ll still be happy to go back whenever high schoolers get the chance. Masterman was already such a great place, I considered my friends a family, but now I see it as a second home. A home away from home.”