Maplewood Teen Graduates From N.Y. Quaker College Prep School

Maplewood, NJ – When Maplewood resident Quentin Newman graduated from the Oakwood Friends School in New York’s Hudson Valley last month, his ceremony was refreshingly different than other graduates in the area.

That’s because students at the 200-year-old independent college prep school are “guided by Quaker values” that include “conscience, compassion and accomplishment,” according to a school news release.

“Commencement at Oakwood Friends is different than at most area schools,” school officials stated in a news release. “The night before, there is a senior class dinner with faculty, friends and family. After the dinner, all go to a candlelit meeting for worship where some participants, after silent contemplation, are moved to speak extemporaneously.”

School administrators continue:

“All students, not just the seniors, attend graduation the next morning. It is held outdoors, under a sprawling copper beach tree on the grounds of the school. After family and friends find their chairs, students from sixth to eleventh grades, plus faculty and staff, enter and take their seats. ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ stirs, and the seniors file in, in a processional of two lines. The graduates sit in front of the tree facing the audience. Speeches by those other than graduates are limited, saving time for one of the more unusual aspects of an Oakwood Friends School commencement: each graduate speaks for up to three minutes, in an often-emotional reflection on her or his years there.”

Newman was among a graduating class of 34 at the school in Poughkeepsie, administrators added.

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Photo: Michael Gallo Farrell/Oakwood Friends School