As CSW settles into summer mode, I want to reflect on our adult closing of the year, our Milestones and Farewells Luncheon that took place on Wednesday, June 11.

We honored some very special faculty and staff members and said good-bye to CSW icons.

I began by looking back to the 1970s and the tenure of headmaster, David Hardy. From Chapter 20 of our school biography (Individuals and Community: The Cambridge School, The First Hundred Years), I read: “From 1968 to 1971 David Hardy led the school courageously in deeply troubled times. The Vietnam War and the invasion of Cambodia brought an unprecedented rift between students and all authority figures, even those whom the students would normally have respected and enjoyed. Individual teachers might escape in some measure the corrosive distrust that infected the air. A headmaster or a college president could rarely escape. …In 1970 student leaders hung up on the question of ultimate power, rejected the whole structure of school government, The Town Meeting voted to disband, the whole framework of cooperative student faculty effort through committees and cabinet was gone.”

Two key opening recognitions: Gwenn Smaxill, our costumier, whose creations have awed us in countless productions marked 40 years of association with CSW. Marilyn DelDonno, science teacher, former department chair and current sustainability coordinator, marked the end of her 30th year of full-time teaching at CSW. We honor and celebrate their dedication and look forward to continued milestones together.

Bill Schirmer, science teacher at The Cambridge School of Weston since 1994 will retire. In his farewell words, department chair Tad Lawrence, honored his love of his discipline, his calm, thoughtful demeanor, and his joy at creating new curriculum.

Employed in many capacities here at CSW since 1981, we also saluted Joanie (Rivera) Bernhardt who will retire. From bookstore manager through dorm parent, teacher and director of the international program, Joanie has turned her hand wherever it was needed. Raising her family here and the mother of three CSW graduates, Joanie embodies so much of our school.

And then I returned briefly to the book to Head of School Hardy and the turbulent 70s, who “…made some excellent appointments. Teachers he brought to the school are now pillars of the faculty: Rhona Carlton-Foss (mathematics), Judith City…Martha Gray…Alice McMahon…Christiane Musinsky…Robert Trumbull Smith…Robin Wood.”

We said good-bye to Hardy’s remaining “pillar,” Rhona, who taught at CSW since 1970. In her farewell words, Evelina Galper, math department head, described Rhona’s students—the ones she always fought for, the ones for whom math did not come easily and the ones she spent hours with, helping them see a way to solutions. From 1970 to 2014 Rhona was part of our endeavor. In the dining hall on that day, we were all able to look back and understand some of the context of her career, her life calling, and to honor her and each other.

A great thank you to all the adults who make CSW such a vibrant place, full of great potential for all.

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Pocket Change is a web diary written by Jane Moulding, head of school.