Graduating BLS students in a class of their own
One year ago, shortly after the Boston Latin School Class of 2016 received their hard-earned diplomas and marched off toward destiny, Tommy Chang, the newlyminted boss of Boston’s public schools, abruptly sacked Latin Headmaster Lynne Mooney Teta and her assistant headmaster, Malcolm Flynn.
Yesterday, more than 300 buoyant graduates of the BLS Class of 2017 filed into a huge concert tent on the Boston Waterfront to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance,” skillfully performed by the BLS Concert Band.
Superintendent Tommy Chang was not there to greet them.
The graduates, along with several thousand family and friends, were told he was “unable to attend due to a previous engagement.”
Perhaps it was just as well, because when acting Boston Latin Headmaster Michael Contompasis introduced Teta and Flynn, who were seated on the stage not far from Mayor Marty Walsh, the crowd erupted with a long, sustained applause.
Also up on that stage in his cap and gown was Ado Jean-Noel, 2017 class president, the son of Haitian immigrants who will be attending Boston College on a full scholarship in the fall.
Ado told me last fall his goal was to devote himself to healing the racial divisions that had exploded off the internet and into the headlines that previous winter.
“I wanted to bring us together,” Jean-Noel said. “I wanted to make sure that the divisions were healed, that we didn’t take what was happening around us and let it affect us negatively.”
Last night, he told his fellow classmates how proud he was of them. “I wanted them to know that what we had in common was the desire to do something great,” Ado said.
“We didn’t have to be here at BLS, but we came to prove to ourselves that we could do it, that’s what I wanted them to know,” he said.
“If we could make it through, Boston Latin, as we did, if we come together as we did this past year, then really there’s not much we can’t do if we try. And I wanted them to know how much it meant that we had been so very together this past year.”
Jerry Howland, who answered a crisis call to serve as Michael Contom pas is’ associate headmaster a year ago, will be looking for a new adventure within the Boston Public Schools this coming year.
As a graduate of Boston Latin, Howland came back to his alma mater after devoting his teaching career to working with students who needed his help, who came from precarious family situations, and who were not as self-motivated or driven as the students he worked with this past year.
“These are probably the smartest high school kids in the state,” Howland said, “but what touched me more deeply is that they are even better people. Their generosity of spirit, the commitment to help is really remarkable.
“The irony for me, in some respects, is that they are so motivated and hungry for knowledge, they challenge you and yet, at the same time, they can almost make you irrelevant,” he said. “I could be the only teacher on lunch duty among several hundred kids and the truth is, I didn’t need to be there. They didn’t need much in the way of supervision.”
Last night, the BLS Class of 2017 drifted out onto Seaport Boulevard, accompanied by proud parents and ready to make their mark on the world.