It’s March in Washington, and our cherry blossoms will flower soon. Spring brings renewal in the classroom as well, as seniors look forward to June’s graduation date, and teachers to the long-awaited rest that summer holds.

I will be leaving the high school classroom either this year or next, hoping to find a different kind of renewal by teaching at George Mason University full-time, or close to full-time. I love my high school classes more than I’ve ever loved my college classes, but driving in the dark to get to school by 7 a.m. each morning and correcting the work of 150 students each night and weekend have combined to wear me out.

Over the past 23 years in Fairfax County, I’ve had many opportunities to watch students and teachers depart, and I am always struck by the ambivalence with which all take their leave. Students are not ambivalent to leave high school work; they have long been ready to put worksheets behind them and to progress to an essay longer than five paragraphs.

What they hate to leave is their social niche. Everyone knows that high schools have cliques that are hard to penetrate, but they perform a crucial function for the students who inhabit them: They are a home away from home. In their new “homes” next year, where will my seniors find that sense of familiarity, the place where “everybody knows your name”?

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The answer is, naturally, that they will make new friends, and those groups will probably be more inclusive than the groups in high school were. But seniors don’t know that yet. This spring they are feeling pre-separation anxiety, and it’s one of the reasons few have any motivation to excel in school.

Another way this anxiety surfaces is in romantic breakups. Relationships that have survived months and even years are now on the rocks, all part of an effort to make separation bearable.

Their attitude toward school follows the same pattern each spring: they resent any work teachers give them, and think we have become “harder.” They can’t wait to exit the school door each day.

But during the last few weeks, they become nostalgic. They will miss us, they say. The same should be true of teachers as they leave a school. They shouldn’t have a burnt-out “good riddance” attitude. Ironically, some who depart with bitterness return the very next year as substitutes, belying that negative departure and proving their loyalty to the profession.

It’s normal for teachers to feel ambivalent, just like students. But we should be mature enough to leave on a “high”—liking our classes and school. This year I’ve had 148 practically perfect students (not a single pill among them), and I’d love that as my last high school memory. I might even forget the many weekends I spent plowing through endless stacks of essays and tests!

Leaving one place and going to another should be a beautiful renewal, just like seeing the cherry blossoms. It should delight both with its familiarity and newness. That’s what I wish for my students’ transition to college life, and for my own transition as well.

Erica Jacobs teaches at Oakton High School and George Mason University. E-mail her at ejacob1@gmu.edu.