Pearl River's Evans Park Elementary Promotes 66

The graduating class of Evans Park Elementary School met Wednesday morning in a gym packed with family and friends for their promotion ceremony.

The 66 fourth-graders will head to Pearl River Middle School this fall.

Principal Peggy Lynch said it’s been a pleasure to observe the students’ growth in their time at Evans Park and see how they’ve learned to treat each other, as well as teachers and school staff, with respect.

“I’ve learned from your teachers that you are a special group of students that work so well with each other,” Lynch said.

Lynch said each spring she asks teachers to reflect on their school year. She read portions of three teacher reflections on the year at Wednesday’s ceremony.

• The first one said: “They are a very receptive group as a whole and rise up to every challenge that I give them. They are also thoughtful, asking pertinent questions during and after lecture.”
• The second one said: “As the year went on, the students learned to work with each other, designing assignments, choosing and researching information and presenting findings to the class.”
• The third one said: “As a class, we gauged the perspective that those we read about usually have faced an obstacle, had a major accomplishment and there’s a significance and fascination about what they achieved.”

Lynch said the intention of those wasn’t to be read at the ceremony.

“The teachers weren’t writing about your promotion ceremony,” she said. “They were just telling me about how thing went in their fourth grade classes this year, and I thought that spoke so well of you as a class, spoke not only of your readiness for middle school, but of your readiness for continued learning.”

During the ceremony, the class performed a few songs led by Glyn Nixon, the school’s choral music teacher. They sang “Today Is The Day,” “On My Way,” “Over The Rainbow” and “Movin’ Right Along.” The third grade students performed “Together We Can.”

The students also showed a class video put together by Tom Price, an art teacher at the school. The video featured members of the graduating class around the school holding up signs with three words describing their Park Evans experience. One of the most used words was “friendship.” It also had the students playing around with each other, as well as teachers and other school staff members.

Editor's note: Stacey Maher contributed pictures to this report.

Evans Park Elementary School Class of 2012

• Marissa Anselmi
• Olivia Arnold
• Karina Balce
• Patrick Benn
• John Bergin
• Ganapathi Bhandaru
• Luke Catalanotto
• Edward Cho
• Colin Clark
• Charles Coffman
• Rachel Ding
• Brian Doherty
• Julianne Donohoe
• Stephen Doorley
• Lorian Fahan
• Dylan Fijor
• Logan Flaherty
• Charles Flynn
• Olivia Flynn
• William Fortescue
• Keyanni Gales
• Sophia Gerace
• Sarah Grace Willemite
• Brian Gurniak
• Sinead Henry
• Anna Hickey
• Gianni Johnson
• Jack Killcommons
• Julia Killcommons
• Julia Kinnally
• Damien Lee
• Robert Lee
• Jada Li
• Quinlyn Maloney
• Nicholas Massaro
• Alexandra Maucione
• Amanda Maucione
• Ryan McCarvill
• Cian McCormack
• Emma McDermott
• Ryan McEnery
• Madeleine McGee
• Rory McGrath
• Thomas McGrath
• Darragh McKenna
• Jack Michaelson
• Jeremy Moynihan
• Deanna Murray
• Alexandra Narciso
• Gianna Nicastro
• Michael Nuti
• Lauryn O’Sullivan
• Matthew Pentimore
• Justin Peraza
• Samuel Preston
• Evelyn Ramirez
• Emily Reilly
• Stefania Rinaldi
• Allison Ritchie
• Kailie Ryan
• Pierce Ryan
• Bridget Shine
• Arianna Speleotes
• Marissa Terry
• Matthew Vilaboy
• Patrick Weir

Download the movie