Milton’s programming for new students and parents begins on Tuesday, September 5. Opening of school activities are designed to help families start to form an understanding of the community we strive to build, the many people who make up our community, and the individual contributions we all make to help form this dynamic learning environment. We know that while new students are surrounded by welcoming faces, they are making their way over unfamiliar terrain.

Our programs in the opening days are geared toward helping everyone get acclimated—to feel confident about who and where they are. These programs are designed by in-house experts—our own faculty and students—who know what being new to Milton feels like and what experiences will be helpful in those first few days. Each person at our School contributes to the Milton environment in big and small ways every day.

For the opening of school schedule, visit the opening of school calendar.

Milton awarded diplomas to 190 seniors during the School’s commencement exercises on June 9, 2017. One longstanding tradition of the ceremony is students electing their student speakers, which assures seniors that they will, at their last Milton gathering, hear from classmates they have chosen. This year, students selected Jacob Atwood and Sophia Wilson Pelton. Delivering the commencement address was alumnus Tze Chun, Milton Academy Class of 1998. Click here to watch the ceremony, read speeches, and view photos from the day.

Just before graduation, underclassmen see the fruits of the seniors’ work at the Senior Project Fair in the ACC. Senior project performances also take place around campus over three days. Freddy Okito gave an emotional TED-style talk of his journey from a Rwandan refugee camp to becoming a student at Milton. Award-winning poet Letitia Chan read a selection of her poems. Marshall Sloane and Elliot Burnes held a debate on Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

Exploring the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and immigration, poet and activist Franny Choi read several of her poems at an assembly sponsored by the Asian Society and GASP student groups.

Ms. Choi, the author of Floating, Brilliant, Gone, shared work about life as the queer daughter of Korean immigrants. Ms. Choi recalled coming out to her parents, a process that took years, as they adjusted to her identity.

A noted educator, speaker and facilitator on issues of diversity and equity, Rodney Glasgow is on campus this week working with students, faculty, staff and administrators on issues of race and identity. Milton’s administration engaged Mr. Glasgow in response to events this week, in which many Upper School students demonstrated through peaceful sit-ins—a result of rising tensions and incidents of what students viewed as insufficient disciplinary response.

In this morning’s assembly, Mr. Glasgow addressed the entire Upper School, beginning with personal stories illustrating the strength and power of racial epithets—both as someone who bullied at one school and was bullied at another. He spoke about owning one’s own actions; the power of forgiveness; and understanding one another. He then invited students to share their personal experiences from the week—some who had participated in the sit-in and some who had not.

“The privilege of being in this community is that you can make the community what you want it to be,” said Mr. Glasgow.

A spring tradition, students and faculty gathered over tea for the Bisbee Prize presentations on Thursday afternoon. The 11 winners, selected by their teachers for outstanding research on their U.S. History papers, gave brief introductions to their work and answered questions from faculty and their peers. Topics ranged from the Native American occupation of Alcatraz in 1969 to the eugenics movement in America in the early 20th century.

Sophie Clivio (II) researched the failure of Civil Rights movement leaders to address sexual assault or rape of women of color. “What I found most interesting is that within the Black Panther movement, very important and powerful black male leaders were assaulting black women who were the heart and soul of the movement. Their treatment was similar to how female slaves were treated, and it wasn’t until the feminist movement in the 1970s that sexual assault against black women was finally given attention.”

George Wilde (I) looked at how processed food products became an accepted part of daily American diet, leading to today’s high obesity rates. “The part of my research that was the most sobering was the mindset of people who worked in the food industry. They were basically bribing the U.S. government with cash and other favors. I learned money gets what it wants and that was pretty freaky to me.”

This spring, four students represented Milton for the first time in the National Economics Challenge, after winning their division in the statewide competition.

Class II students Jaime Moore-Carrillo, Dhruv Jain, Quincy Hughes and Jeffrey Cao were invited to the Massachusetts statehouse on May 15 to be recognized as state champions. The first Milton students to compete in the challenge, they also placed 16th out of 35 teams in the semi-finals of the David Ricardo Division in the national challenge. Their entry, held online in April, was the result of their independent research into forming a student economics club at Milton.