Principal Julianne eagan Recaps Graduates’ School experience

The following speech was delivered by Principal Julianne Eagan to the Dummerston School Class of 2023 on their graduation night, June 13, 2023:

Congratulations, Dummerston School Graduates!

We are so excited to share this moment with all of you and to mark this important transition in the life of these remarkable individuals sitting before you. Eighth-graders, I first met you at the very beginning of your middle-school experience, when you were in fifth grade, during a year we thought would be kind of typical. Then March 2020 came along. You endured separation from friends and families, you learned online with your teachers and classmates, you persevered. And the challenges kept coming. During your sixth grade, about half of you transitioned to a remote classroom with teachers and classmates from Green Street and Oak Grove Schools, getting to know an entirely new community and system of learning. The other half came in person to Dummerston School, handling social distancing, masking, hybrid learning, quarantines, and the separation of your class into two mixed-age cohorts. Whatever learning environment you found yourself in, you did your best to learn and to thrive.

Then in August of 2021, your class was reunited and you completed the last two years of your Dummerston School community together, learning, playing, and growing into the young people we see before us and celebrate today. Eighth graders, your wholehearted presence here at Dummerston taught all of us, students and adults alike – you led by example, you helped us recover from our separation during the pandemic, and you have left your mark on this place. And you did this in ways big and small, giving it your all on the soccer field and basketball court, building your own skills while simultaneously supporting the growth of your teammates; serving as mentors to the first grade class, who, by the way, LOVE you and will miss you so much; planning and having a blast at the first ever Dummerston School middle school dodge ball tournament; making improvements and caring for our school through work with Mr. Bailey, our head custodian; working with Afghan muralist Negina Azimi to paint a mural for future Dummerston School students and staff to enjoy and reflect upon; planning welcoming and fun dances for middle school students in surrounding towns; racing your solar cars, making music and art, and even contra dancing with your community. You may not realize it, eighth graders, but this participation, this “showing up” for our school and our whole community made a difference to all of us –you gave a gift to the Dummerston School community that will always live with us. And, this gift was one you gave to yourself, too, and now you can take it with you. You have a superpower. That superpower is showing up for yourself, for your community, for your classmates, and for your school, live and in-person every day. Some might argue that attending a small middle school in a small town like Dummerston won’t prepare you as well as a larger school for your high school experience. I wholeheartedly disagree. At Dummerston School, when it comes to understanding, problem solving, working out conflict, and mending friendships, there simply is no other way but through. Day after day, year after year, you have sought to understand each other and to be understood, you have had difficult and challenging conversations, you have had to forgive, to look beyond the surface, to dig deeper, and to see people not only for who they are, but for who they can continued on page 12