SOUTH HADLEY — Students at Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School haven’t seen the inside of the school — save for a few half-days last semester — for 15 months. But that wasn’t an issue for this year’s senior class.
At the school’s graduation celebration June 3, 57 students from the Class of 2021 gathered with loved ones on the front lawn of the campus. Each wore a different brightly hued and heavily decorated graduation cap, a nod to the school’s artistic emphasis and its own colorful hallways. The ceremony was drenched in student nostalgia over a lost senior year, but also recognized the courage and grit of the Class of 2021.
“It is my belief that the Class of 2021 is in a position to affect the change that’s needed as you transition into the next phase of learning, working and existing as global citizens,” said Brent Nielsen, the school’s interim executive director, during his opening remarks. “My wish is that you don’t forget what the pandemic has taught you about yourselves, about your family and about your community, and that you use what you’ve learned to make a difference in the world around you.”
The ceremony honored a class that spent more than one-third of their time in high school during the pandemic, and it was impossible to avoid the topic.
“The Class of 2021 has had quite a journey,” joked Lua Moreira, one of the graduating student speakers, at the celebration. “Six years, five million productions, four heads of school, three national elections, two years of remote learning and one deadly pandemic.”
Moreira praised her classmates for achieving massive accomplishments, both academic and personal, during their time in high school. The wide-reaching success of the graduates was not overshadowed during the ceremony — the small class included students from across western Massachusetts who plan to pursue college, art projects, jobs and internships after high school.
“PVPA students are resilient,” Moreira said. “The teachers who taught us, families who nurtured us and friends who supported us made sure that we weren’t taught to be rule-followers. We were taught to be kind and imaginative and artistic, and to find levity, humor and fun even in the darkest of times.”
The camaraderie was shared by Henry Floquet, another student speaker. Floquet was met with a burst of laughter and applause from his peers as he approached the stage and referenced pranks and trouble the class had gotten into since enrolling at PVPA in seventh grade. According to Floquet and Moreira, PVPA’s class of 2021 has been through a lot, but the trials of distance learning actually pulled the small class together.
“At this point, our scrappiness is all but fact,” Floquet said to his peers. “But so is our resourcefulness and creativity. This is what PVPA has taught us.”
The school’s board of trustees also delivered a handful of annual awards at the celebration. Only one was awarded to a graduating student, the others going to faculty and community members who made a difference in PVPA operations this year.
Zoe Lemos, a member of the Class of 2021, was awarded the inaugural Edward M. Godleski Music Scholarship Leadership Award by Riley Godleski, an alum of PVPA. The $750 prize is awarded “to one graduating PVPA senior on the basis of excellence, commitment, dedication and perseverance in the field of music,” according to the event’s program.
Melinda Winter, president of the school’s board of trustees, also addressed the graduating class. “Has it been normal? No,” she began. “But it’s been consistently PVPA, which is not normal. It is adapting and figuring out how to make it your own. And that’s what you guys have done. You’ve figured out how to do that, and we’ve been very proud of the way that you have made it your own.”
The pride was shared by Ken Mello and Alyson Miller, who teach math and English, respectively, at PVPA. Mello referred to the class as a “truly remarkable group of scholars and artists,” and urged each new graduate to remain connected to their community and the arts as they moved forward.
“Class of 2021, bring the arts into the new world,” Miller said. “The arts make us human. The arts help us to survive.”
A special section with more graduation news about the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School will be published in the Gazette on July 3.