Culture & Community | Education & Youth | High School in the Community | Arts & Culture | New Haven Schools
"Bonus mom" Michelle Vassell and Valedictorian Alyssa Findlay. Lucy Gellman.
Alyssa Findlay didn’t know what to do when a bad case of “online-itis” hit her sophomore year of high school. A global pandemic meant that she was at home, learning on a screen. She could no longer see her friends. And with her classroom suddenly squished into her home, focusing was a problem.
Thursday, she came to the stage as valedictorian of her high school class. Her first words—“We made it y’all. We made it!”—came with pumping arms and rafter-raising cheers.
A spirit of resilience flowed freely through Wooster Square Park Thursday night, as High School in the Community (HSC) graduated 64 seniors in the class of 2022. For many of the students, who were sophomores when the Covid-19 pandemic hit New Haven in March of 2020, it was a day that they aren’t taking for granted.
Just a few of the 64 seniors who triumphed over "online-itis."
In multiple speeches, on- and off-stage hugs, and conversations after the ceremony, all of them reflected on what it took to reach their graduation.
“We are capable of creating a blueprint for change,” Findlay said, looking out onto a class that includes aspiring politicians, doctors, artists, musicians, scientists, and teachers. “Not only were we able to adapt to a new way of learning, but also a new way of interacting with others.”
Like the class of 2021, the class of 2022 has been uniquely shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic. When Covid-19 hit New Haven, HSC students went home for what they originally thought would be two weeks. Instead, they were remote for multiple semesters, watching their peers graduate in a strange new world of masked up and socially distanced ceremonies. Because New Haven schools remained hybrid through the end of the 2020-2021 academic year, several of this year's seniors did not see each other in person for over a year.
That shared struggle made them a stronger, kinder group of students, many said throughout the night. HSC Building Leader Cari Strand lauded the class, singling out several seniors for helping pull their classmates through. She shouted out Shiv Patel, who went above and beyond on bus duty. She looked to students Adrianna Henry and Korrine Moriarty, who beautified the hallways with a Three Graces mural dedicated to victims of gun violence.
Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Leadership Dr. Paul Whyte approaches the mic to confirm the degrees. Building Leader Cari Strand is pictured speaking.
She applauded student council leaders Rachel Christman, Anthony Fiore, Findley, Saad Ouro Djeri and Clarence Jones, who remained committed to social justice even as they masked up and navigated a new way of learning. Fiore led outside the school as well: he was for two years one of two student reps on the New Haven Board of Education.
"These acts of leadership and empathy are exactly what we expect from a school grounded in the values of compassion, respect, action, integrity, and greatness," she said. "Despite a global crisis, they marched for Black Lives Matter. They supported each other every day. They continued to dream of and fight for a better world. As they move forward from HSC, I know that they will fight the good fight to make a difference and build a better life for all."
Both during and after the ceremony, students brought that energy to the celebration. Beginning to cry from the podium—"see what you do to me?" she said with a laugh—Findlay pointed to the resilience she and her classmates showed during over a year of remote learning. They didn’t ask for it, she said, but they rose to the challenge.
It’s personal to her. When she was a kid, Findlay's mother sent her to the U.S. from Jamaica with her stepmom—or "bonus mom," as she put it—making the choice so that her daughter could have a better education. For almost a decade, Findlay worked to succeed in school, juggling her studies carefully. She never expected a global pandemic to get between her and graduation.
"Y'all, as it went on, it wasn't the best," she said. A few laughs erupted from three rows of folding chairs, where her classmates sat. Their mortarboards festooned with photos, glitter, hand-drawn designs and bright fabric flowers, seemed to nod in assent.
For her, she said, the challenges of remote learning ranged from staying awake and alert during class to feeling anxious and extremely isolated during the first months of the pandemic. She diagnosed herself and fellow members of the class of 2022 with "online-itis"—an exhaustion from being constantly online and interfacing with people only through a screen.
"Despite all of these obstacles, we still persisted so that we could reach this moment," she said. Students learned to communicate in masks. They worked with their teachers to build new learning plans in the classroom. They were able to return to an outdoor retreat. "Our high school roller coaster was not easy. But we made it to the end by not letting any challenges impede us."
Findlay plans to bring those lessons with her to Baltimore this August, as she begins her studies at Johns Hopkins University. Thursday, her stepmom and brothers beamed proudly from the audience, hanging onto every word.
Salutatorian Wendy Meneses Perez. “It means being whoever you want to be,” they said in an interview after the graduation ceremony. “Not letting anyone take that away from you.”
Salutatorian Wendy Meneses Perez echoed that message of resilience, making it their own in the process. Born and raised in New Haven, Perez started high school four years ago as a wide-eyed freshman at James Hillhouse High School. While they tried to ease into classes, “I felt like I didn’t really belong,” they said. Peers and teachers alike deadnamed them and failed to use their pronouns, no matter how many times they asked. It didn’t feel safe, let alone welcoming.
“They didn’t really understand,” Perez said. They transferred into HSC their junior year.
Classes were still remote at the time, which Perez said was both stressful and socially more comfortable than jumping right into a new, in-person school environment. When they returned to the school this year, it was “kind of hard to talk to people” at first. It was also transformative, they said: classmates and teachers asked for, remembered, and honored their name and pronouns. It let them feel like they could show up as their complete self.
“Being with you feels liberating,” they told their classmates from the stage Thursday. After graduation, they plan to take a “gap” year to work before applying to higher education.
“It [liberation] means being whoever you want to be,” they said in an interview after the graduation ceremony. “Not letting anyone take that away from you.”
Nyzaire Barnes and Anthony Baldwin. Baldwin said he was walking the stage for his grandmother, who wanted him to succeed.
Several other students also took time to remember and pay homage to the people who had gotten them to the finish line. As he waited to enter Wooster Square with his peers, Anthony Baldwin rocked a cap designed for his grandmother, a fierce New Haven matriarch and nana named Ena Baldwin. In the early 2000s, Baldwin raised Anthony and his younger brothers. She died in 2013.
On his cap, two photographs of his grandmother floated on a sea of green fabric, her smile radiant. Her name gleamed in thick silver glitter lettering below.
“She always wanted me to succeed,” Baldwin said. Thursday, he was the first in his class to walk across the stage to receive his diploma, to cacophonous cheers and nonstop applause from the audience. ”This feels incredible.”
Top: Saad Ouro Djeri with his family. Bottom: He and Tyler Sanchez make time for a selfie.
A first generation American and soon-to-be first generation college student, Saad Ouro Djeri said he struggled during the pandemic. In 2003, his parents moved from Togo, West Africa, to New Haven to provide their children with a better education. He was born a year later. As a kid and then a young adult, he worked to do well in school. At HSC, he excelled in his studies.
Then in the midst of a global pandemic, classes went remote. His father, who had suffered a stroke, passed away. His whole word as he knew it was on its head. “The pandemic hit us hard,” he said Thursday, as classmates and family members surrounded him with laughter. “What got me through, honestly, was the idea of not liking failure.”
He acknowledged an irony to it: HSC was originally his fourth choice for high school. A lifelong math geek, Ouro Djeri hung his hopes on ESUMS, where he believed he would thrive. Instead, he discovered a school family that helped get him through Covid-19 and his father’s death. He plans to take pre-med classes when he arrives at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) this fall.
“It feels kind of surreal,” he said. He paused to take a selfie with fellow grads, and then picked the thought back up. “I’m the firstborn. I’m the first to go to college. There are great people here … and they pushed me past my limits.”
“I know that she’s with me. I can hear her saying, ‘I’m proud of you.’”
Rocking a mortarboard with bright fabric flowers, a portrait of her grandmother and a seam of sunny yellow, gold-tinted beads over the letters “R.I.P.,” Glorannia Vazquez Rivera honored her late grandmother Julie, who passed away unexpectedly last week in Cidra, Puerto Rico. Because her death was so sudden, Vazquez Rivera did not have the chance to say a proper goodbye.
Thursday, she got choked up as she spoke about how much she had hoped to share this moment with her. When Covid-19 pushed learning to a screen, Vazquez Rivera struggled to adapt. She had trouble paying attention in classes, and would often attend with her pet dogs and rabbits, or cook to keep her hands occupied. It was her inability to focus that ultimately led to a diagnosis of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Her grandmother was there through it all.
Glorannia Vazquez Rivera with Alex Gonzalez, Tyler Sanchez, and Saad Ouro Djeri.
When she returned to school last fall, Vazquez Rivera found that the time away had changed how she was able to function in a classroom. She couldn’t sit and listen to a lesson without getting fidgety. Instead of getting annoyed, her teachers worked with her to develop an approach that would keep her engaged.
Thursday, she said that she wished her grandmother had been able to see the moment. She plans to keep her memory alive in the years to come, as she attends cosmetology school to pursue a personal passion.
“I gave her all the flowers I could find,” she said, tilting her head back until the portrait of her grandmother was visible. “I know that she’s with me. I can hear her saying, ‘I’m proud of you.’”
Watch some of the ceremony in the video above.