Notes On The Upcoming School Year For The Stone Student Body

At the start of this new school year, student government president Carly M’ addressed the collected Stone student body — our largest student body in school history. Today, we’re excited to share with you Carly’s “Notes On the Upcoming School Year For The Stone Student Body”.

Notes On The Upcoming School Year For The Stone Student Body

Last year, on the first day of school, I stood in front of new and returning students in a field at Climbers Run.  We were masked up and spread out, but together as a school for the first time in months.  And we did incredible things last year -- we wrote, we designed and we built.

Last year was about persisting through the pandemic while keeping Stone’s culture alive. 

There is an idea of a progress narrative, the story where if you wait out the bad, eventually, normalcy will return. But we cannot wait out the world.  Being a Stone student is living the Mission, is making the world a measurably better place, is practicing our values. That does not happen without action. 

This year must be about taking the momentum of last school year and applying it to create. 

This year is about getting involved -- in the school, in Lancaster, in the world. 

This year is about rebuilding. 

Today is the first day of a new year to be spent building what Stone is capable of.  For the next 10 months, we have the opportunity and the obligation to create and design our school.  Because it is just that, it is our school.  And every single student here -- from our seniors down to our newest seventh graders -- each of us is responsible for the design of this year. 

Being at Stone means that your experience as a student is dependent on your own effort. What you put into the year is what you will eventually get out of the year.  If you have a problem, you have the power to fix it. If you have a question, you have the space to voice it. 

And most importantly, if you have an idea, you have the opportunity to see it become reality.

The challenge for the next 170 days is to make the most out of the year, academically, socially, and personally.  The school will change over your years within it and it will change over the span of the year itself. It always does. There will be ups and there will be downs. 

There will be challenges you haven’t even thought possible yet. 

But here at Stone, the ball is in our court and the cards are in our hands. 

As we get started, an important thing to remember is this: Stone culture exists in every facet of the school.  It is big events like Drive-Ins and bonfires, service projects and Intensives, Spirit week and Stonehunt.  But it is also the little everyday things that change what it means to be at school. 

It's in the Jenga games in the middle of Morning Meeting.  It's in the music on the mezzanine during E-block.  It's opening up Slack to see hundreds of replies to a single message asking for book recommendations.  It's a shared google doc devoted to documenting quotes. 

It's hot chocolate in the coffee shop on our first two hour delay day. 

If you can’t see yourself adding to Stone's culture in the loud way yet, know that just by existing in the community you are changing and evolving it in the small, quiet ways every day.  We have the time, space and support to create something truly amazing, to create the foundations for next year and the years that follow. 

And that is the work of this year, the work of rebuilding.

For the first time in almost two years, we have the opportunity to start a school year in this building and to end it here too.  For the first time in almost two years, the Middle and Upper Schools are able to collaborate together, with no separation between cohorts or spaces.  We have the opportunity to rebuild in person this year, and to rebuild into a stronger, more inclusive and more integrated school community. 

This is the work of every student here, and the work that starts now.

Interested in learning if your student is a good fit for our “Think Big” culture? Visit out Admissions page today to schedule a private tour or a shadow day!

See Also: Notes On Gratitude For the Class of 2021; Four hours, 10000 Trees, and a Whole Lot Of Impact; We Did #BIG.