The Class Of 2001

If there’s one thing we have learned here at The Bee after 124 years of covering community news, it’s that everyone has a story. And almost everyone’s story is remarkable. We have preoccupied ourselves in recent months telling the story of the town’s pursuit of Fairfield Hills and a new 5/6 school, thinking that these were the truly important stories of the year. These issues involved great sums of money, spent to purchase nothing less than opportunity itself. But in looking though all the portraits of the members of the Newtown High School Class of 2001, we are reminded that the millions we spend on education year-in and year-out is our biggest investment in opportunity.

This year we are spending $7,126 to educate every child in the school system. To bring the current class of kindergartners to their graduation ceremony in 2013, we will have to spend at least $100,000 on each one, and by then there will be 12 new classes of students to educate at equal or greater cost. It is truly the great story of every generation in our community.

The story isn’t great, however, because of the amount of money we spend. The lives we empower through the remarkable process of learning that has evolved in our public schools over the years make it a great story. We aren’t fooling ourselves. We know the system isn’t perfect, just as we know that the senior pictures we present this week feature a level of couture and coiffure not usually seen in the classroom. It is a bit of artifice we indulge in, however, to remind ourselves that with just a little extra effort our better selves always seem to emerge at the appropriate time. So it is with local education; we can and will do better. Yet what we are doing right now, just as it is, is pretty darn good.

Every portrait on the four pages we devote to the 313 graduating seniors at Newtown High School this week represents a story. Each senior has faced challenge in its many forms, from stepping on to the bus alone on that first day of school to finessing those impossibly awkward years of adolescence to grinding out countless essays, projects, and presentations in high school. Throw in the ordinary – and sometimes extraordinary – ups and downs, stresses and strains that families go through these days, and the story of each of these young men and women is compelling. We would like to tell all their stories, but the best we can do this graduation week is to publish their pictures.

The Class of 2001 graduates Tuesday, June 19, at 5 pm at the high school. We offer all the graduating seniors our congratulations and hope that their stories unfold into many more chapters of happiness and success.