Principal
Good evening parents, Superintendent Daly, North Reading School Committee Chairman Friedman and members of the Class of 2025.
As Principal, I am proud to welcome you to the 68th Commencement Exercises for North Reading High School.
Allow me to offer my sincere thanks to the custodial staff, the cafeteria crew, the administrative assistants’ team, Mrs. Tsang, Mrs. Jorgenson, and Ms. Burke, the faculty, the district administration, and our parent community. A special thanks to the class advisors Ms. Gagnon and Ms. Gilbert; I know you were in good hands, and a special thanks to Mrs. Boggs, your yearbook advisor and her yearbook team. They worked very hard; the finished product is a fine example of their commitment and hard work.
Additionally, I want to take this opportunity to thank Mrs. Alonzo. I appreciate our time together these past three years. This evening’s commencement ceremony marks the eleventh opportunity for me as principal to address the graduating class. As you can see from our program, I am one of several who will be speaking to our graduates today, but student speakers will outnumber adult speakers, and I believe that is wholly appropriate; today is about the members of the Class of 2025. This tradition of a principal’s address is one that has special meaning for me this year, so the pressure is on for some remarks that justly honor the moment. However, before I get into that part of it, I don’t know if I’m going to get a better chance, a more perfect moment, to say thank you to the faculty and staff at the high school… there’s probably a better way to say it, but when it comes to the people in your life, I believe there are really only three categories, and I am happy to provide a color-coded chart detailing this, laminated upon request only: three categories…your family—you get stuck with them… so figure it out; your friends—you get to choose and you’re allowed to be really selective, way better odds; and those you do your work with—in this we rely on good will, character, and the idea that whole will be greater than the sum of our parts.
I cannot be more grateful, more proud, and more thankful to those educators seated to my right. Please thank them with me.
I shared a small story with the seniors earlier this week, I emailed it to them on their school email account, some students, at this time, are likely vaguely recalling that they actually have a school email account and important messages from teachers and administrators get delivered directly into that account.
Anyway, the story is one that some may be familiar with, I offered into the North Reading Transcript a couple months back as an entry for my scheduled Around the Schoolyard section of the newspaper. A quick shout out to the Transcript for its dedication to students at North Reading High School. It’s one of the small things that one quickly realizes becomes a big thing and is a prime example of what makes North Reading, North Reading. I have many fond memories of sharing stories of student academic, athletic, and artistic success with Bob Turosz, Maureen Doherty, and other members of that staff, including Eva Hanegraaff, our first student intern at the Transcript.
Admittedly, another quick tangent, had to go there, love the Transcript. Now back to my original thought, the story I offered told of the experience of an educator proving their ability and their capacity to educate… I used a metaphor for this work, likening it to holding a bird. This is my message to you, members of the class of 2025, I wish for you, an opportunity to be given a chance to be willing, if granted, to choose to hold that bird. Better yet, don’t wait to be asked if you want to hold the bird. Have the courage to trust in yourself, in those teachers that taught you, in your mentors and your coaches that prepared you, in your friends and family that shaped you, to seek out the bird, to offer yourself to this task.
Don’t be afraid to take that bird, to hold it, to protect it, to nurture it, to be ultimately responsible for its welfare. This is really hard work, it may be work that is stressful at times, painful at times, lonely at times, and at times, so rewarding, so immensely gratifying, and so powerful that you realize it truly has no comparison. It has a value that cannot be measured and it explains to you why you are doing this work.
Class of 2025, trust in yourself, have the courage that has been sown in you, have the confidence that you possess the preparation for those hardships that come with leadership in any chosen vocation, embrace the gratitude that comes from sacrifice, and hold that bird, it will change your life, and you will never regret it.