For the second year in a row, The Chestnut Hill School is participating in the February Challenge. Created to increase young alumni giving participation (classes 1994-2014), the February Challenge is a competition between Atrium, Belmont Day, Brookwood, Charles River, Dedham Country Day, Derby, Fay, Meadowbrook, Nashoba Brooks, Tower, and CHS. The school that receives the greatest percentage of alumni participation wins! Last year we came in fifth place but we know we can do better.

Why is it important to have a strong Annual Fund? The Annual Fund represents current-use funds that the school uses to enhance and enrich the CHS experience.

The CHS Annual Fund enables the school to purchase athletic equipment, books, computers, iPads, art supplies, and many other tools that enrich the student experience.  The Annual Fund also supports clubs such as the community service group, Friends in Our Community, the all new Grade 6 Robotics team, and Equity and Social Justice. In short, the Annual Fund supports what students and teachers experience here every day - just as it did when we walked these halls.

The easiest way to support CHS is to make a gift online on our secure giving form: http://www.tchs.org/giving. Feel free to get in touch with the alumni relations office at alumni@tchs.org if you have any questions!

Help CHS win the February Challenge, #give2CHS  #gochsalumni today!

On Sunday, October 19 from 12pm-3pm, come home for a day of fun and memories on the Hill!

At the Alumni Table, you can check out your time capsule or yearbook, submit a class note, reconnect with faculty and staff, or pick up new CHS school apparel.

Take a tour of the school and share it with others. Post any photos taken at the event and post to Instagram, twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #chsalumni

Alumni Benefits:
- All alumni and children under the age of 3 receive free admission
- Alumni receive a $10 voucher to use towards carnival food

Activities include: arts and crafts, face painting, tattoos, hair and nail art, raffles, photo booth, and more.

Parking available on neighborhood streets around the school, except Essex, Reservoir and Chestnut Hill Road.

If you cannot join us this year, send your well wishes to your fellow alumni along with an update to kfox@tchs.org.

At its annual graduation ceremony on June 6, 2014, The Chestnut Hill School presented its third Distinguished Alumni Award to Chestnut Hill native, Michael Sherman. The Distinguished Alumni Award is given to an alumnus/a whose exemplary service and remarkable accomplishments have contributed notably to his/her field. It is of the utmost importance that the chosen recipient be a person who has continued to uphold the CHS mission of academic excellence, diversity, and community while also serving as a role model for current and future generations of CHS students and alumni.

Read the acceptance speech of Distinguished Alumni Award winner, Michael Sherman '56:

Thank you very much! To you, Dr. Tobolsky, faculty, graduates (congratulations), students, families, friends, Romans, countrymen, loved ones, Jeri Goetz of the Development office, and especially the very patient Kim Fox, who answered all 97 of my questions about the school and today’s program…Thank you all for such a wonderful honor.

As President Lyndon Johnson once said at a similar graduation ceremony:  “This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me -- and my mother would have believed it.”

I am so grateful and humbled especially following in the footsteps of last year’s winner and Belmont Hill grad, the distinguished Doctor Chris Awtry.  I am fond of saying that a little gratitude and recognition goes a long way with a teacher, and you given me a boatload!  I also know that I am all that stands between you, lunch and summer vacation, so I promise to be brief, but this is such a great opportunity for a Sherman Sermon!

I want to give a special shout-out to the faculty here at CHS.  I enjoyed an all-too brief visit here a couple of weeks ago and had the pleasure of meeting Karen Garrison and Dylan Gallegos.  You never get a second chance to make a first impression (that’s point #1 in the Sherman Sermon!), and I could sense the enthusiasm, the energy and the excitement (the three e’s!) Karen and Dylan conveyed in just a few minutes!  You obviously do a great job, and I can also see that in the terrific CHS grads who go through Belmont Hill, many of whom I have had the pleasure of teaching.  For example, I’m happy to report that Hartman Russell (and I told him I was going to embarrass him this way) is carrying forth the CHS banner with great success.  Hartman just aced his Algebra 2 course with me, I coached him in baseball a couple of years ago, he won a prize for reciting a poem at our school-wide poetry fest, and just this week he a sang a solo part with our elite singing group in front of 500 people at graduation.  So no pressure, Jackson Riffe!  We look forward to having you at Belmont Hill next year.

Returning to CHS is really a homecoming for me.  I grew up right up the hill here at the top of Essex Road, where my family had a home for some 50 years, and at a time when there were still real chestnuts on the trees!  My sister and I would walk up and down the hill to school, play in the playground, and enjoy a simpler life when the milkman drove his truck to our house, TV was only in black and white, and President Eisenhower looked like my kindly grandfather. 

CHS is where I learned to love school.   Now you graduates have been going to school, by my math, for about 1400 days.  I love school so much I’ve been going every school day for 60 years, which is about 9000 days!  Do the math!  And it all started right here! 

I love school because it satisfies the basic human instinct of curiosity.  We are naturally curious creatures!  We love to explore.  When I was growing up here on the hill, just a few houses away right up here on Chestnut Hill Road lived the Byrd family.  Admiral Richard Byrd, with whose grandsons I went to school, was a famous explorer who was one of the first people to make expeditions to the north and south poles in 1920’s, flying primitive airplanes, around the same time Lindberg was flying across the Atlantic.  Now while I never met Admiral Byrd, nevertheless the example of knowing the family of a famous person who pushed out the boundaries of human knowledge was inspiring to me as a young student.  Today some 90 years after Admiral Byrd’s expiditions, we are still pushing out the limits of our knowledge.  For example we have a robotic explorer, a little rover car, going around right now on the surface of the planet Mars…do you know what its name is?  Curiosity!

Not only do we humans like to push the boundaries of our external world, we also like to see how far our internal world can stretch.  By that I mean we like to find out how much we can learn, how much we know, how skilled we can become.  And it all starts right here in your first school and continues for the rest of your lives!  I love learning…every day.  Just the other day I was excited to learn about solar roadways – putting solar panels in roads and driveways and playgrounds and using all that area to capture the sun’s energy and produce electricity, light and heat.  No more plowing snow!! And I still love to test my knowledge and develop my skills…I love doing crosswords and watching Jeopardy and solving new math problems and learning to play a new song.  Remember, do you know what the biggest room in the world is?  The room for improvement!

I love school because you can have fun and pursue enjoyable, creative activities that last a lifetime!  The reading, writing, and arithmetic I learned here are of course so important, but the art, music and sports are really important and fun, too!  For example my dear friend Lesley who is with me today is a professional artist, whose work regularly appears at shows around the region.  She will vouch for a love of art that started in elementary school.  Just across the hall in what is now the library, we had music class with Mrs. Ehrlich.  I remember mostly beating on drums and wooden blocks, but she started my love of music and today I play a little guitar and keyboard -- I’m a real amateur – but I love playing music with my friends, pretending to be rock stars!  And I love sports, I’ve coached basketball and baseball for many years and played many other sports and games for fun, and it is no surprise that some of my most vivid memories of this place were fun times climbing the jungle gym or swinging on swings right out here on the playground. 

I love school because I get to share my love and knowledge of math with my students.  Math is so useful in everything we do, starting with the kind of arithmetic you learn here.  When you go to middle and high school you learn this funny math language called algebra, which I know some of you older students have begun to see.  Algebra allows us to describe patterns out there in the real world – it’s the language of science.  And it starts with the idea that a letter from the alphabet stands for a number, like a secret code!  So we combine two basic skills you learn right here in elementary school.  We can, for example describe the path of the flight of a ping-pong ball with some really simple algebra – here’s the way it sounds: “y=x^2”, and with a little bit more complicated algebra we can figure out how to send that little rover car, Curiosity, all the way to the distant planet Mars!

Ok it’s time for a couple of riddles:

First how do cows count?  On a cow-culator!
 
What did the snail say when it was riding on the back of the turtle?
Weeeeeeee

So you know that feeling when you tell someone a riddle and you ask the question and you know the answer and you’re excited to tell the person the answer because you know something that they don’t, but you can't wait to see how happy they are going to be when you tell them the answer that you know?! That’s what teaching is like every day for your great teachers here at CHS and for me – we love sharing what we know and watching you get excited about it.  And by the way the best way to learn something is to teach it!  So share your knowledge with your friends, your family and your teachers!  Thank you for honoring a teacher today. 

I’d like to close with the words of the singer Bob Dylan, with echoes of Rod Stewart:

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
And may you stay forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
May you stay forever young

This year we are pleased to announce that The Chestnut Hill School is participating in the February Challenge! The February Challenge is an alumni giving challenge where CHS will be competing against Atrium, Belmont Day, Brookwood, Charles River, Dedham Country Day, Derby, Meadowbrook, Nashoba Brooks, and Tower schools. Whichever school receives the greatest percentage of alumni participation in their Annual Fund in the month of February wins! As an added bonus, the winning school will receive $500 towards their Annual Fund.

Throughout the entire month of February we will be utilizing the alumni Facebook page, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to connect with you and your classmates asking them to #give2CHS! As members of the CHS alumni community, please help lead the charge and “like,” comment, and share posts to help spread the word. 

Why is it important to have a strong Annual Fund? The Annual Fund represents current-use funds that the school uses to enhance and enrich the CHS experience, such as:

• The purchase of athletic equipment, books for teachers and the library, new computers, iPads, art supplies and so many other tools that help enrich the CHS experience.
• Field trips to enrich the learning experience outside the classroom: Do you remember your 5th grade trip to Thompson Island? What about the 6th grade visit to Farm School? The Annual Fund ensures that these happen year after year.
• The Annual Fund also helps support Financial Aid, ensuring that a CHS education is available to every deserving student, regardless of their socioeconomic situation.
• Community service projects for Friends in Our Community: such as volunteering for Cradles to Crayons, planting daffodils, and collecting items for canned food drives, and making Mother’s Day baskets for families in need.

The easiest way to support CHS is to make a gift online on our secure giving form: http://www.tchs.org/giving. Feel free to get in touch with the alumni relations office at alumni@tchs.org if you have any questions!

Help CHS win the February Challenge, #give2CHS today! 

On Saturday, October 19 Come home for a day of fun and memories on the Hill!

At the Alumni Tent, you can check out your time capsule or yearbook, submit a class note, reconnect with faculty and staff, or pick up new CHS school apparel.

Take a tour of the school and share it with others. Post any photos taken at the event and post to Instagram, twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #chsalumni

Alumni Benefits:
- All alumni and children under the age of 3 receive free admission
- Alumni receive a $10 voucher to use towards carnival food

Activities include: arts and crafts, face painting, tattoos, hair and nail art, raffles, photo buttons, and more.

Parking available on neighborhood streets around the school, except Essex, Reservoir and those on the Hill.

If you cannot join us this year, send your well wishes to your fellow alumni along with an update to kfox@tchs.org. 

When:

Friday September 27 6-8:30pm (open to public)
Saturday September 28 8am-2pm (Open to public)

Are you looking to unload some things you don't need in your closet or around your house? Donations may be left at the school entrance.

Please donate only gently used items in sale-able condition.
• Sporting goods (skates, skis, roller blades, etc)
• Small furniture (side or coffee tables, lamp, small book shelves)
• Books and DVDs
• Jewelry
• Handbags and accessories
• Electronics (in working condition and including any necessary attachments)
• Children’s and adults’ clothing and outerwear (in good condition)
• Halloween costumes and dress up clothes
• Toys and bikes
• Home goods (vases, working appliances, china)

We cannot accept the following:
• Undergarments or socks
• Soiled or worn clothing
• Work out clothes or t-shirts
• Cribs or mattresses
• Carseats
• Stuffed animals

Please volunteer! Contact Jen Williams (jbigsw@comcast.net) or Nancy Morrisroe at nmorrisroe@alum.bu.edu

This year, we will also unveil the commemorative benches that honor the service of Wendy Borosavage and Joann Greenwood. Join the community in celebrating them!

When: Tuesday, May 28, 5:30 - 8:00 p.m.
 
Where:
CHS Campus
428 Hammond Street
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
 
Wear a t-shirt of your current school, college or alma mater. Participate in an activity with Mrs. Greenwood and check out your time capsule. Alumni barbeque dinner included.
 
Cannot join us? You can also be part of the celebration by:
 
• Making a gift in Mrs. Borosavage’s or Mrs. Greenwood’s honor to the 2012/2013 Annual Fund recognizing their impact on CHS students and alumni. Gifts of every size are welcome and appreciated. The ladies will be provided a list of donors (excluding gift amount) who make gifts in their honor.
 
• Submitting a written memory to Mrs. Borosavage and/or Mrs. Greenwood at alumni@tchs.org
Do you remember a funny or poignant story about your time in class? Would you like to write a message of congratulations? Click the link above to send your message or photo. Messages and photos will be presented to Mrs. Borosavage and Mrs. Greenwood.

Contact Jeri Goetz (jgoetz@tchs.org) in the Development Office for more information about the celebration.

The Alumni Leadership Council of The Chestnut Hill School will present the Distinguished Alumni Award this June. The award winning alumni recipient, their nominator, and guests will be in a place of honor on June 7, 2013 to receive this distinction. Award nominations deadline has been extended to May 6, 2013.

CHS Distinguished Alumnus/a Award
Given to an alumnus/a whose exemplary service and remarkable accomplishments have contributed tremendously to his/her field. This is currently the only award that the Board gives out on a yearly basis.

The criteria on which the nominee is chosen is as follows:

1. Any person having attended The Chestnut Hill School is eligible. Having graduated from The Chestnut Hill School is not a requirement.
2. The nominee shall have shown remarkable success and achievement in his/her chosen career/field;
3. The nominee shall have shown extraordinary courage, persistence or imagination in overcoming challenges;
4. The nominee shall have made a significant contribution to community on a local, state, national or international level or to the CHS community;
5. The honoree should be a role model that current students and future generations of CHS alumni can emulate;
6. Individuals running for or holding public office are not eligible;

The nominee must meet one or more of the criteria.

Nominations may be made by submitting a nominating letter with supporting material (such as a resume) to the Alumni Leadership Council, in care of Jeri Goetz, director of development, The Chestnut Hill School, 428 Hammond Street, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 or alumni@tchs.org.

Nominations are accepted annually due May 1 - extended to May 6, 2013. Nominations will be kept on file for consideration for three years following the submission date.

The distinguished alumni award is given annually at graduation in June.

Casual Attire

6:30 – Dinner Reception
7:15 – Panel Discussions
Classes of 2007 and 2013 in the CMR
Parents of Classes of 2007 and 2013 in the Library
8:15 – Networking over dessert

Reading Partners are asked to bring a book to share with their partner that has become special to them.

Your reply is requested
by Friday, April 19 to Tramaine Weekes
at tweekes@tchs.org or 617-566-4394 ext. 651

College Week, a new alumni tradition begins with a feature of Gus Polstein '04

Gus Polstein '04 returned to CHS to share about his studies in Critical Theory and Social Justice by participating in a discussion with the School's Equity and Social Justice Group. Gus is currently a junior at Occidental College in Los Angeles, by way of Beaver Country Day School where his brother, Harry '07, is a senior. 

A new diversity initiative from the Office of Community and Diversity, the Students of Equity and Social Justice (ESJ) is group for students in Grades 4 through 6 and "focuses on empowerment and co-cownership of the community in strategically building on and sustaining diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusivity." (Christine Savini)

Facilitated by 5th Grade faculty members Lauren (Shropshire) Giordano and Michael Coppola (@MichaelRCoppola), students have already analyzed the School's mission in terms of equity, looked at messages of gender and racial stereotypes to learn what they can do about them, and met with guest speaker, David Anderson, about looking critically at what messages media is sending. Gus exclaimed, "This is great! My classmates and I wish that we were having these types of discussions when we were your age."

View the photo gallery

Gus talked about his journey and his studies of social justice at Occidental with the ESJ group. Students asked questions like "What made you interested in this topic?" and "Has it ever been difficult to do this work?" Gus shared that he became interested when he joined a similar group at Beaver and shared with them that the work can be tough, but it is worth it. He reminded them "We are working together. No one is an island." When students inquired about how Gus was going to use his studies in his career, he shared that his work will apply to every industry. He will have some unique insights and perspectives to share with his future employers. 

Realizing that he had not had these kinds of discussions until he was in high school, Gus left the group with words of encouragement for foundational work the group was doing. "It will make a big difference in your future."

Following the meeting, Gus toured the School, caught up with faculty and staff members, and checked out his time capsule. This semester, Gus will be studying abroad in Chile. We hope to hear about his travels, hopefully in a follow-up article.

Thanks Gus!
¡Buen viaje!

You can share too!

The doors at CHS are always open to alumni
to share with current students, the "alumni of tomorrow."
Do you have a passion? A gift or talent? An invention?
A published work? A point of view?
Alumni are encouraged to bring what excites them
to the greater CHS community.
Contact us at alumni@tchs.org or 617-566-4394 x651
to learn about alumni speaking opportunities.