Dec. 22, 2024
Grant Elementary School kindergarten teacher Tracy Reichhold didn’t hesitate to step away from the classroom on Nov. 22 so she could be in the courtroom when a former student and his adoptive mother became official.
Reichhold forged a bond with Sa’Davion Brock and Priscilla Dixon as they struggled with online learning during the pandemic year of 2020-21. She shared both encouragement and tech support over the phone and even made a house call to their apartment.
Four years later, with Sa’Davion in fourth grade, Reichhold remains a trusted school resource for the pair. It was natural she be among friends and relatives who witnessed them legally become mother and son during a National Adoption Day ceremony in the Santa Clara County Family Court.
Through her 19 years of teaching, Reichhold said, former students have invited her to sporting events, birthdays and especially graduations, “but an adoption was a first for me.”
“I absolutely wouldn’t miss it,” she said. “That’s such a special moment, and I was really honored to be a part of it.”
Dixon is not a blood relative of Sa’Davion but has been with him since birth and remains connected to his birth family. She considers Reichhold a godsend.
“She’s been in my life since the day I stepped into Grant Elementary,” Dixon said. “When COVID was going on, I didn’t know how to work a computer. … She came over to my house and showed me how to work with the computer.
“My kids and my grandkids, they love her. Anybody I talk to when they’re ready to start kindergarten, I say, ‘I hope you get Miss Reichhold.’ She’s a very supportive lady.”
Reichhold, in turn, said, “I feel all the feels as a teacher.
“We as teachers, we do what we do for all the right reasons, and it’s really rewarding when we get to reap the benefits of what we do and be able to touch the lives of these kids and their families – that they continue to want us to be part of their celebrations and all the pieces of their lives.”
(Photos by Jessica Tekawa Pham)