FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

Our summer edition of Spirit of the Dragon always quite rightly features our graduating seniors. An added layer in this issue is the interesting overlap between the class of 2023 and the departing faculty recipients of honorary diplomas this year. One of the great GCS traditions is the conferring of honorary diplomas to long-serving faculty or staff who have made unique and powerful contributions to the life of the School. Our recipients this year were Kevin Macaluso, Paige Walton, and David Weeks.

Among many other striking insights in her senior reflection at graduation, Claudia Davis noted, “In our wonderfully diverse and inclusive community, we have learned to respect, value, and celebrate our human differences. And, through our community service, we have realized the importance of volunteering and helping others.” No one has ever played a bigger role at GCS than David Weeks in promulgating the everlasting value of community service in engendering mutual respect and in bringing together people of different backgrounds and perspectives.

In his senior reflection, Peter Seelman writes that “we didn’t just learn equations, facts, and ideas. We learned about ourselves, each other, and the world in which we thrived.” The introduction of Kevin Macaluso as an honorary diploma recipient written by Brandon Neblett contains this line: “A fixture at GCS for 25 years, Kevin has seized every opportunity to get to know his students and share with them experiences that will help them to get to know the world and themselves better.” The serendipitous alignment of Peter’s observation and Mr. Neblett’s description of “Mr. Mac’s” work here was quite poignant and meaningful.

In the introduction she wrote for Paige Walton, Hilary McCarthy noted that “Paige is an excellent communicator and has incredible positive energy.” These qualities made Paige an outstanding teacher and coach at GCS for the past 24 years. In addition to her amazing work in the classroom, Paige’s outstanding accomplishments as a coach are no doubt reflected in this issue’s NCAA student athletes section where nine of the 12 highlighted seniors headed on to college sports were girls lacrosse players under Paige’s tutelage.

These three faculty “graduates” typify the ineffably valuable impact that our faculty and staff have on our students’ lives and development, and I’m immeasurably grateful for the work that all of them do every day. I hope that you enjoy this edition of the Spirt of the Dragon as much as we enjoy the opportunity its creation always gives us to reflect on the GCS experience and all who contribute to making our School such a special place.