Dear SPS Alumni,

I hope you and your families are safe and well. Much has already happened in the first few weeks of 2021, and we here at St. Paul’s School keep our extended community in our thoughts and prayers.

For months, we have had substantive and thoughtful discussions about the feasibility of hosting Anniversary Weekend on the grounds this spring and how doing so would impact the campus community as well as the Concord-area community. Our highest priority in these conversations was to protect the health and safety of those who would take part in the festivities. While there is encouraging news about vaccines, there is still much uncertainty about when we can return to hosting alumni gatherings at the School. After much deliberation, we have decided to celebrate the 2021 Anniversary Weekend virtually for the 2020 and 2021 reunion forms. 

Though likely not a surprise, given the pandemic’s sustained ferocity, I am sure this news is a disappointment. We share in this disappointment as we too will miss celebrating the deep connections and lifelong friendships with you here on the grounds, and though it is not possible to replicate the experiences of seeing friends and formmates in-person, we are excited to create substantive (and fun!) virtual programming to mark your milestone anniversaries. Our team will work closely with the volunteers for the Forms of 0s & 5s and 1s & 6s to ensure that the 2021 Anniversary Weekend allows you to meaningfully engage with one another and experience the School today. 

Thank you for your understanding. I am always struck by the kindness and generosity of the School’s alumni, and even more so at a time like this, that demands tough decisions. We look forward to celebrating virtually with you in June!

As virtual plans take shape, we will be updating the reunion website, so be sure to check back for more details. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us here in the Alumni Office at alumni@sps.edu.

Warm regards,

Greetings from the grounds!

As we approach the end of our first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we do so with gratitude for the resilience of our faculty, staff, and students and for the support of our alumni and our families. Schools all over the world have faced huge challenges over this past year, and we have never been as conscious of the privilege it is to be able to come together, in person, to do the work of learning, teaching, and growing.

Eighteen months ago – even fourteen months ago – it would have been crazy to imagine our grounds empty of students for weeks at a time, throughout the spring and summer. It would have been hard to imagine the kind of fall we have just completed, with masks and de-densification and owl cameras in classrooms and Zoom as our go-to instructional medium for the weeks between Thanksgiving and late January. As we prepare to welcome students back to the grounds, we hope to be able to play six to eight ice hockey games this winter; we hope to be able to engage the community in a powerful series of Black History Month events, even though we cannot gather in large groups, and we hope to be able to get through the winter and spring of this year without needing to close or suspend in-person learning as new and more powerful virus variations appear. It would take a tremendous amount of imagination to have imagined where we are today.

But we as a community can muster the optimism to imagine that better times are ahead because we can see them taking shape around us. As we look forward to the promise that vaccines offer, and as we reconcile ourselves to the facts necessary to contain and conquer the pandemic, we know that in doing so, we shorten the time it will take for our country to recover in so many important ways. While we know we need to plan on a fall 2021 that looks a lot like what fall 2020 was, we know that better times are ahead and that whatever accommodations we need to make now, we can do so confident that they will pay off.

In that spirit, while I write to confirm that, as safety and well-being mandate, we will transition all alumni and Anniversary events to online formats for this spring.

I am confident that despite all of our disappointment, we can find ways to enjoy each other’s company and mark important milestones in the friendships that tie this community together. Over the coming weeks, and with the great work of the Alumni Association, we will continue to offer virtual events that can bring us together, and having had a first experience last spring with virtual Anniversary, we look to improve upon our work to celebrate our reunion classes in May and in June. Being able to look forward to coming back to the grounds with friends is an important source of optimism for many, and while it might be delayed, we can be confident that these friendships will stand the test of time – and Zoom – well.

I know our community will rally around the Form of 2021 as we prioritize an in-person Graduation on the grounds in mid-May; while attendance needs to be limited to immediate family members, we will do everything we can to send our newest graduates forth with the love and support of the entire community behind them.

With immense gratitude for your support,