DANVERS — If there were ever an example of triumph and tragedy running concurrent with each other, the St. John’s Prep Class of 2020 experienced it.
The triumphs were many, in athletics, academics and extracurricular activities. The tragedy was singular, but significant: the death of alumnus Peter Frates (’03), whose struggle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) energized a nation with the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge.
Before the year began, The Prep placed a special focus on the Xaverian value of humility, which calls courageous decisions to build others up with actions and words. Perhaps no other sentiment could have better met the moment.
The events of a single week in December brought the year into focus. The football team won its second straight Division 1 Super Bowl Dec. 7. The team, and the school, had been the focus of a WCVB-TV Channel 5 episode “Chronicle” the night before.
Six days later, the cameras and TV trucks were back on campus as the entire Prep community of 1,724 students, faculty and staff lined both sides of Spring and Summer streets, hand-in-hand, extending more than a quarter mile throughout campus, as the hearse carrying Frates to his final resting place processed the route accompanied by a state and local police honor guard.
“That was a moment in time for all of us,” said Gus Baylow ’20, the longtime voice of Eagles athletics, who will attend the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. “As a class, we embraced humility as an action verb and Pete was an inspirational force for good we can carry with us moving forward.”
The next three months were marked by similarly inspiring moments, large and small.
The lecture series sponsored by the school’s Center for Mission and Research along with the Prep’s O’Brien Student-Athlete Leadership Initiative continued to bring world-renowned, influential innovators and role models to St. John’s. Accomplished professionals and dignitaries such as former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, NCAA All-American and U.S. Olympic team wrestler Joe Heskett, Vice Admiral Richard Brown ’81, commander of all U.S. Naval Surface Forces, and Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien ’88 visited campus to share their wisdom with the Class of 2020.
Prep athletics continued to roll. The mountain biking team became Eastern Division champions of the Northern New England High School series; the cross country squad captured the MIAA All-State Division l championships, the swimming & diving team won its 14th Division 1 title in 15 seasons, the unbeaten wrestling team earned the school’s third Dual Meet State title; and the hockey team advanced to the Super 8 tournament semifinals.
Following the suspension of the spring sports campaign, the MIAA officially cancelled the season for all sports on April 24. Once again, the senior class earned a hard lesson.
Earlier in the month, the athletic department announced 31 Eagle student-athletes who had made written commitments to compete in college. An additional 12 had committed to their college during the early-signing window in November. The list includes grant-in-aid athletes in baseball (12), football (nine), lacrosse (five), crew (four), rugby (three), soccer (three), golf (two), track and field (two) and one each in wrestling, cross country and fencing.
Co-curriculars were at the forefront as well. The 19-time state champion and senior-laden drama guild advanced to the semifinals of the High School Theater Festival. Four Prep teams entered the Babson College Entrepreneurship Program for Innovators and Changemakers Rocket Pitch event, presenting social impact business innovations to Babson judges virtually.
For the sixth year in a row, an Eagles team finished either first or second. Under the leadership of seniors Michael Baraty and Brandon Saad, the school’s robotics team advanced to the Southern New England Championships and the Mock Trial team, led by seniors Niko Malinowski, Jarred Nowak and Mitchell Robson, reached the state championships round for a fourth straight year.
The inaugural cohort of Advanced Research Capstone students presented their final projects via Zoom to a virtual audience at the end of this school year. These 28 seniors conducted independent research for more than a year on projects in a self-selected area of interest. Topics touched on everything from the Northern Pacific Garbage Patch to the science of trust between teammates.
In addition to service and volunteerism initiatives like hosting the North Shore’s Walk for Hospice, volunteering more than 3,500 hours as a school community and donating tens of thousands of dollars to support humanitarian causes via Dress Down Day fundraisers, the senior class leaned in to the ideal of servant-leadership from the early stages of the pandemic through the receipt of their diplomas.
With the help of his younger brothers, Charlie Davis ’20 answered The Prep’s call that Tufts Medical Center in Boston was actively seeking donations of used iPads for their patients to connect virtually with their families. After restoring them to their factory setting so they could be used solely for FaceTime, Davis donated more than two dozen devices to Beverly Hospital and Tufts Medical Center for use on floors treating COVID-19 patients. Brian Souza ’20 remotely organized a schoolwide collection for the medical professionals in the Boston area, securing scores of N95 masks, surgical masks, procedural masks, masks with fluid shields, latex-free gloves and clear lens goggles.
The Prep’s pivot to online learning was helped by the fact the school has been a one-to-one iPad learning environment since 2014 and has long been supported by a stand-alone digital learning team, a Center for Teaching and Learning, and a deeply resourced Information Services Department. Thanks to a learning management system (Canvas) already in place and faculty familiarity with G Suite for Education, teachers were able to focus on sustaining good pedagogical practice while managing the realities of a virtual learning environment, rather than the reverse.
In recognition of the unprecedented challenges this year’s graduating class experienced as well as those students’ unique capacity to meet the moment, St. John’s Prep hand-delivered diplomas to its graduating seniors in May. The journey, spanning 15 days from May 14 to May 29, covered 1,044.5 miles, endured approximately 200 hours and traversed 64 cities and towns across two states.
Co-piloting a school shuttle bus, Headmaster Edward Hardiman and Principal/Associate Head of School Keith Crowley drove themselves to student residences using route-optimization software. All safe practices for Massachusetts residents issued by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health were followed throughout the effort.
Making the initiative even more meaningful, 112 faculty and staff members volunteered to personally attend individual diploma drop offs for every single graduate. The vast majority of faculty and staff made multiple home visits. In all, Prep faculty and staff combined to make more than 500 visits to individual diploma deliveries. At least a half-dozen faculty or staff across different departments signed up to attend more than a dozen individual ceremonies, and several attended more than 20.
The trip carried diplomas to 14 graduates from New Hampshire, reaching as far north as New Castle and as far west as Windham. Across the Commonwealth, the route hit municipalities along every compass point, including as far as Amesbury to the north, Gloucester to the east, Lynn and Revere to the south and Westford to the west.
“Something magical happens when someone actually hands you that document,” says Matt Green ’20, a Beverly resident who received his diploma on May 19 and will attend Fordham University to study the fine arts with a concentration in theater. “They made it such a beautiful moment. It was so special to have my family and teachers there to applaud. I was overwhelmed. It was an incredible seven minutes and something I’ll never forget.”
