Future Farmers of America are diving into agriculture, science and technology -- and membership is increasing

Former Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue welcomes Future Farmers of America students. (USDA photo via Offrange)

Young people in Future Farmers of America have stepped up the group's outreach and scope by working on "highly technical, lab-based Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE) that are a long way from modern stereotypes about FFA," reports Sarah Murphy of Offrange. New FFA experiences include cows, pigs, plants, shows and a whole lot more.

The group is working to expand projects that prepare students for "technological advances, challenges, and opportunities facing 21st-century agriculture," Murphy explains. FFA is also recruiting new members from urban schools and communities that haven't traditionally been in the FFA mix. "So far, the efforts seem to be paying off. Membership grew 11% in 2023 alone, to nearly 950,000 students."

As FFA fans out to more communities, more non-rural students are experiencing rural and farming life for the first time. Patrycja Zbrzezny, who directs the John Bowne High School’s agriculture program in Queens, New York, told Murphy, "We try to open up the world of ag to them to experience it all.” Murphy adds, "The school’s 3.9-acre farm includes miniature horses, goats, and sheep, as well as 150 laying hens whose eggs the students sell at their agricultural stand."

National Proficiency Award projects from 2023 illustrate the depth and breadth of what some FFA students are challenging themselves and their supervisors to explore. Murphy writes, "[Students] are founding their own genetics labs to test ruminant blood for pregnancy, creating podcasts to interview agricultural leaders, flying drones, and breeding hypoallergenic Yorkie Poodles."

Students who learn the most throughout their SAE are passionate about their project and have good instructional support. FFA program specialist Brett Evans told Murphy, "The number one problem we have is not enough teachers. We have schools that want to open programs, but we are not producing enough teachers to meet the demand.” 

West Virginia is among the first states to ban some synthetic food dyes from school lunches

Many dyes from nature can replace artificial colors.
(Adobe Stock photo)

West Virginia schools took certain food dyes off the school lunch menu starting on Aug. 1. "West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a sweeping new law in March banning seven artificial dyes from school meals," reports Jonel Aleccia of The Associated Press. "Other states have enacted similar laws that would strip artificial dyes from school meals, but West Virginia’s action is the first to take effect."

The brief timeline between March and August sent state and school nutrition directors on a crunch time search to root out any school menu items that "contained any trace of petroleum-based synthetic dyes, including Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2 and Green 3," Aleccia explains. Once those items were removed, directors began working out substitution options that kids would still eat.

Health advocates have pushed to get synthetic dyes out of U.S. food for years, "citing mixed evidence of potential harm," Aleccia reports. "West Virginia’s ban on synthetic dyes was cheered by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has successfully pressured food makers to agree to remove artificial colors from their products."

Still, banning certain dyes won't suddenly make Americans healthier. "Nutrition experts agree that removing artificial colors from foods doesn’t address the main drivers of America’s chronic health problems," Aleccia writes. "Those stem largely from ingredients such as added sugars, sodium and saturated fat."

Nationally, the push against synthetic dyes is more of a baby step toward better nutrition. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary "has joined Kennedy in the push to get artificial dyes out of food, despite limited proof of health effects," Aleccia reports. In a recent podcast, Makary called the removal of petroleum-based food dyes "steps in the right direction.”

Just because Jell-O fruit cups and older versions of  Cool Ranch Doritos won't be served, doesn't mean school lunches will all turn beige. "Some suppliers had already removed artificial dyes from some school foods, swapping them for products colored with beet juice or turmeric." 

Parents revive the one-room schoolhouse in two rural Missouri communities

The Homestead School’s main room serves as the school's primary 
gathering space. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell, The Daily Yonder)

Ozark parents are going back in time to the old one-room schoolhouse concept, hoping that the past offers the best lessons on how to educate the hearts, minds and spirits of children.

"This seemingly old-timey form of schooling is reemerging in rural areas where families seek a different education for their children," reports Kaitlyn McConnell for The Daily Yonder. "Technology is very limited, and value is placed on personal character, work ethic, relationship building, and a foundation of faith in the primarily Christian region."

Starting around the end of the Civil War until the 1940s, the one-room schoolhouse was "the bedrock of rural Ozarks communities. Kids focused on learning basics that were taught by one teacher in one room," McConnell explains. The trend is re-emerging as "smaller – or at least more localized – is seen by some as better."

Not every new one-room schoolhouse runs exactly the way they did in earlier times; instead, their structure is meant to "channel close-knit classes, ideals, and beliefs – religious and lifestyle – that their leaders feel are important to instill in younger generations," McConnell reports.

Neighborhood Christian Schools serves about 40 kids from kindergarten through high school in Hutton Valley, Missouri, following the old philosophy. "The day is broken into periods that focus on traditional subjects," McConnell writes. "Kids from first through sixth grade are in the same room with one teacher. Like a traditional one-room school, more advanced students assist kids at lower levels."

Brenten and Kimberly Blake founded Homestead Schoolhouse about 100 miles west of Hutton Valley in rural Taney County. Their school "takes a more modern approach to 'one-room schooling,’" McConnell reports. "Instead of all being together in one room. . some core classes are broken down more into age or skill. In addition to coursework, the student’s experience includes 'life skills' training to recover rural knowledge, like animal husbandry and home economics."

"Whether it’s salvation or academics or better citizens, the long game is the goal for schools like these to have their impact be long-lasting beyond the core academic subjects," McConnell adds. Kimberly Blake told her, "Success really won’t be measured for several years – to see if you’re really instilling values in students."

A high school public health care boarding school is planned in Alabama; part of its mission is to serve rural counties

Alabama will launch a high school focused on health
care. (Adobe Stock photo)

Amid national health care provider shortages, Alabama is investing in a high school public health care boarding school "to address [the state's] health care staffing crisis, particularly in rural parts of the state, by training students for roles across the medical field," reports Alander Rocha of the Alabama Reflector. The board "overseeing the creation laid the groundwork to select a leader and prepare a curriculum."

With planning under way, the school "is scheduled to enroll its inaugural ninth-grade class in 2026," Rocha writes. "Rob Pearson, interim president of the Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences Foundation, said that the school will offer 'certification levels beyond what’s currently available in Alabama high schools for those looking to become health care professionals.'"

Health disparities between the state's rural and urban populations, which are particularly dire along the Black Belt, motivated health care leaders and stakeholders to work creatively to increase health care access in rural areas. Rocha reports, "The Black Belt experiences some of the state’s worst health outcomes, and Alabama already ranks among the lowest nationally. Life expectancy in every Black Belt county is below the state average of nearly 75 years."

Demopolis is in Marengo
County, Ala. (Wikipedia)

True to its rural service mission, the new Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences will be built in Demopolis, a small town with roughly 7,000 residents in west-central Alabama. State Superintendent Eric Mackey "said the school’s recruitment strategy will focus on drawing students from across the state to build a workforce pipeline beyond those wanting to attend medical school, like nursing," Rocha reports. The school "will join a network of specialized boarding schools, including the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering."

Through their initiative to establish high schools focused on health care, Bloomberg Philanthropies "is providing $26 million of the estimated $80 million needed," Rocha adds. "A groundbreaking expected by mid-2025. . . . The school is the only rural residential school funded by Bloomberg."

Quick hits: Deceptive ice cream; no cells in some classrooms; most Americans like these four TV shows; rural road safety

Life Raft Treats ‘Not Fried Chicken’ Ice Cream Bucket
is a fan favorite. (Life Raft Treats photo)

It may look like a fried chicken leg, but it's mail-order ice cream. "We tested the most intriguing of the current wave of mail-order ice cream sandwiches and sandwich-like treats," reports Nicole Taylor of The Wall Street Journal. "Small producers around the country have the technology (and the dry ice) to ship nationally, right to your front door." Read all the Journal's picks here.

If there's one thing many teachers would like removed from students' grip, it's cell phones. "More than 70 percent of high school teachers say student phone distraction is a 'major problem,'" reports Natasha Singer of The New York Times. "That’s why states are mounting a bipartisan effort to crack down on rampant student cellphone use. So far this year, at least eight states have passed laws, issued orders or adopted rules to curb phone use among students during school hours."

Fresh July snowfall dotting the tundra and the mountains just outside the Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska (Adobe Stock photo)

Looking to take in U.S. national parks, but not willing or able to handle all the people? Don't worry, there are still places to explore. "These more remote U.S. parks, from Alaska to American Samoa, are kept well away from the bustling crowds," reports National Geographic. "The Gates of the Arctic National Park, in Alaska, is one of the marvels of the U.S. national park system. This and other parks lie on roads less traveled, and take some extra incentive to visit." Find National Geographic's five hidden gem picks here.

Part of getting prepped for football season means tending to the football field's soil, which can be dangerous to athletes if it's too hard. To test soil "toughness," professionals use a score from the Clegg Impact Soil tester, explains Rebecca Schweitzer-Benner of Lancaster Farming. "The maximum firmness score allowed for NFL fields is 85. . . . Field maintenance can involve adjusting pH, fertility and soil structure. Professional fields require more detailed management than high school fields do, and often more fertilizer, frequent aeration and irrigation. Also, lots of mowing."

All that's left of this show's victims
are their bones. (Fox TV photo)

New research reveals that Americans from all political walks of life share an affinity for watching five TV shows, writes Johanna Blakley for The Conversation. Those shows include “America’s Funniest Home Videos, Bones, Criminal Minds, MythBusters and Pawn Stars. . . . Four of these shows were well-liked, but Pawn Stars was actually one of the least-liked shows in our sample of 50. . . . It had the dubious distinction of being the most hate-watched show in America." To read more about American blue, red and purple TV viewing habits, click here.

Now that back-to-school season is in full swing, it's a good time to remind high school drivers of the best ways to stay safe on rural roads, reports Lisa Foust Prater of Successful Farming:

• Always wear seat belts and insist that passengers do, as well.
• Drive cautiously and within the speed limit.
• Be patient when driving behind a large or slow-moving vehicle; be aware you may not be able to see oncoming traffic.
• Pass only when the road is clear.
• Ride with your children from time to time and continue to teach them even after they have a driver’s license.
• Never let anyone ride in the bed of a pickup

Top U.S. colleges are trying harder to recruit and retain rural students; admission offers rose by 12.9% over last year

The STARS College Network works to help rural students get into
selective colleges and succeed as undergraduate students. (Adobe Stock photo)

Rural students often graduate from high school with better grades and test scores than their suburban and urban counterparts, but that rarely leads to them graduating from top U.S. college programs. To address this disparity, the STARS College Network has been working to engage and support rural undergraduates "to feel more at home at selective colleges," reports Rebecca Koenig of EdSurge. 

The STARS program brought together "16 public and private institutions committed to improving their efforts at attracting and retaining students who grew up in rural communities," Koenig writes. "Programs at member colleges include hosting summer learning opportunities and on-campus recruitment events for high schoolers and sending more admissions staff out to high schools in small towns."

The network began in 2023 and has flourished. "The consortium announced that it is doubling its membership — to include 32 colleges and universities," Koenig explains. "This growing interest is a recognition of the fact that although federal data shows 90 percent of students from rural regions graduate from high school, only about half go directly to college."

During middle school and high school, many rural students are less likely to be exposed to higher education opportunities. Historically, more selective colleges did not actively recruit in smaller communities. "Students at rural high schools may lack access to adequate counseling about college options and financial aid," Koenig reports. "Or they may not be offered classes that selective institutions look for among applicants, such as calculus."

Rigorous recruitment efforts by STARS College Network schools created a substantial increase in college offers to rural students. Koenig adds, "STARS schools extended more than 11,000 offers of admission to the Class of 2028, which was a 12.9% increase over the number of admissions offers made to rural students in their applicant pools last year."

STARS colleges see rural student retention as equally important to admission. Each school has a structure designed to help rural students transition to bigger city and school life. Avery Simpson is a STARS mentor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She told Koenig: “Coming from a rural community, sometimes we forget we’re capable of doing what other people can do. . . . I can see the impact I’m making on these students, and I can see myself in these students.”

To view the STARS College Network list of participating institutions, click here.

Home schooling is America's fastest-growing form of education, but some are concerned about the results

The Washington Post graph

Amid school shootings, political polarization, controversial mask mandates, teacher strikes and student-to-student bullying, the U.S. educational system has been under tremendous pressure in recent years. In response, many parents are opting for an unconventional approach. "Home schooling has become — by a wide margin — America's fastest-growing form of education," report Peter Jamison, Laura Meckler, Prayag Gordy, Clara Ence Morse and Chris Alcantara of The Washington Post. "As families from Upper Manhattan to Eastern Kentucky embrace a largely unregulated practice once confined to the ideological fringe, a Washington Post analysis shows. . . . It is a remarkable expansion for a form of instruction that 40 years ago was still considered illegal in much of the country."

"The analysis — based on data The Post collected for thousands of school districts across the country — reveals that a dramatic rise in home schooling at the onset of the pandemic has largely sustained itself through the 2022-23 academic year, defying predictions that most families would return to schools that have dispensed with mask mandates and other covid-19 restrictions," the Post reports. "The growth demonstrates home schooling's arrival as a mainstay of the American educational system, with its impact — on society, on public schools and, above all, on hundreds of thousands of children now learning outside a conventional academic setting — only beginning to be felt."

The Post "estimates that there are now between 1.9 million and 2.7 million home-schooled children in the United States, depending on the rate of increase in areas without reliable data."

The Washington Post graph

The sheer number of home schooled children has left some citizens worried. The Post reports, "Many of America's new home-schooled children have entered a world where no government official will ever check on what, or how well, they are being taught." Elizabeth Bartholet, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School and child welfare advocate, told reporters: "Policymakers should think, 'Wow — this is a lot of kids.' We should worry about whether they're learning anything."

"If there is a capital of American home schooling, it may be Hillsborough County, Fla," the Post reports. "There were 10,680 children being home-schooled at the beginning of the 2022 academic year within Hillsborough County's school district, the biggest total in The Post's home-schooling database." Corey McKeown, a home schooling advocate and teacher in Hillsborough, told the Post: "Home-schoolers in Hillsborough County do not lack for anything. We have come such a long way."

But Hillsborough County School Board member Lynn Gray, a former public school teacher who taught history part-time for several years at a Catholic home-schooling co-op, told the Post, "I can tell you right now: Many of these parents don't have any understanding of education. The price will be very big to us and to society. But that won't show up for a few years."

Quick hits: Seed catalogues promise amazing produce; a round barn rises; the Audubon Society's complicated name

Illustration by Nolan Pelletier, The New Yorker

"Leafing through seed catalogues" is all kinds of fun, reports historian Jill Lepore, writing for The New Yorker. "They promise 40-pound beets, rhubarb that tastes like wine, tomatoes that look like stained-glass windows, and world salvation. It doesn't hurt to dream." Or to read Lepore's piece!    

One in six children lack access to clean underwear; a nonprofit is partnering with underwear maker to help.

Pollution exposure is tough on the human body, and skin is no exception. "Here's what we know about what pollution does to your skin, and what you can do about it," reports Courtney Rubin of The New York Times.

A little bit of StoryCorps from rural Tennessee is always good on a Monday: "Father And Son Look Back On A Life Filled With Music" with Jason Von Stein and Jim Von Stein.

The interior of Jay Branson’s round barn in Guthrie, Oklahoma 
(Photo by Hailey Branson-Potts, Los Angeles Times)

Some beautiful things can happen in the midst of loss or perhaps because of it. "Jay often was home alone with his grief. To stay sane, he went out to his backyard and started building the barn. . . . Although not exactly common, round barns have a long history in the U.S.," reports Haily Branson-Potts of the Los Angeles Times.

After a year of discussions, the National Audubon Society board voted to retain the organization's name despite John James Audubon's history as an enslaver and racist, reports Jesus Jiménez for The New York Times. "The decision faced sharp criticism from other birding groups across the country, including its own staff in the Bird Union." The society's website attempts to address the founder's failings: "His contributions to ornithology, art, and culture are enormous, but he was a complex and troubling character who did despicable things even by the standards of his day."

As winter hangs on, cattle raisers should remember that when "squatty, squishy bales make their way out of the ditch and into the cow, it can be costly," the University of Missouri advises. In other words, "Cheap hay isn't cheap."

High school basketball competitions can be fierce, but they can also bring out the best in people. "Martin County High School boys' basketball team was in the final quarter of a nail-biter of a game at a regional tournament in Pikeville, Ky., when live music suddenly started playing for them," reports Sydney Page of The Washington Post. "They knew it wasn't their school's small 23-member band — which could not attend the game because of a bus driver shortage. . . . The music was coming from the nearly 100-member band of a rival school. The score was tied in the tense game when the music started." The band was from Pike County Central High School.

Misbehaving teachers move from district to district and state to state with relatively little scrutiny

Teachers who have committed sexual misconduct are able to move from district to district and state to state without close checking by school administrators and state governments, and the issue appears to have been widely ignored.

In Kentucky, the Lexington Herald-Leader "found that over a five-year period, the top reason the majority of teachers voluntarily gave up their licenses or had them revoked or suspended was due to sexual misconduct," report the paper's Beth Musgrave and Valarie Honeycutt Spears. Despite some teachers eventually leaving the profession, many are allowed to move to multiple teaching posts without consequences for prior abuse even when the abuse resulted in suspensions.

Take the case of Kentucky teacher Jason Earlywine who was "a physical education and health teacher, was disciplined for sending a student more than 1,700 voice or text messages in 2011 and 2012 and for other inappropriate conduct while a teacher at Paris Independent School District," Musgrave and Spears write. "He eventually left the district and got a job at West Jessamine High School in 2019. Students said in the first several months on the job that Earlywine made inappropriate comments to female students. . . . according to Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board documents."

Kentucky does not have enough prevention policies or training that would help keep possible abusers out of the school system and prevent those that do gain access from traveling from school to school. "Kentucky teachers receive training on sexual harassment but has no requirement that they undergo training on sexual abuse or appropriate boundaries between teachers and students," Musgrave and Spears report. "33 states and the District of Columbia mandate that training."

Kentucky is not alone. Many states that struggle to prevent the hiring or discipline of teachers who act inappropriately with students. In Cabell County, W.Va., a gym teacher faced charges for sexually abusing multiple students. "The alleged incidents happened from August 2019 through January of 2022, according to the criminal complaint," says Eric Fossell for WSAZ-TV. "It also states that an administrator with Cabell County Schools told investigators that Miles had been reprimanded before for similar allegations. That administrator asked Miles in a letter to refrain from 'jovial touching of students' or the matter would be referred to the superintendent."

A Montana school district was sued in 2020, "over its hiring of a teacher and coach who was accused of sending sexual messages to the student," reports The Associated Press. The suit said the teacher "had a pattern of inappropriate behavior toward underaged girls and that the school district was negligent in hiring him. . . . Botsford had been fired from a different high school in 1999 after two girls reported him for inappropriate contact. . . . Centerville Supt. Jan Cahill investigated the reports and found Botsford had 'unethical and immoral relationships' with at least three students, the lawsuit said."

While laws can be passed, it's up to school boards and administrators to set policies and stop abuse. For instance, the Montana legislature passed the "Creating a student safety accountability act" in May of 2019, but it did it keep the teacher from continuing his pattern of abuse.

Quick hits: Many fireworks displays canceled; fewer of us drink milk; rural Texas students fight local book bans

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Communities across the nation are canceling their Independence Day fireworks displays because of wildfire hazards, supply-chain issues and worker shortages. Read more here.

In a town near Uvalde, Texas, teachers have carried weapons since 2013. Parents say they feel safer. Read more here.

An LGBTQ high school student in rural Texas organized students to fight the local school board's book bans. Read more here.

A recent study says that lack of water costs families, communities and the U.S. economy $8.58 billion each year. Read more here.

Bird-flu outbreaks are slowing down, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture is urging poultry farmers to be ready for a possible resurgence in the fall. Read more here.

Consumption of fluid cow's milk is continuing a downward trend that is proving difficult to reverse, according to a new USDA report. Read more here.

Op-ed: the Hazard homecoming controversy overshadows Appalachian town trying to move past coal

Hazard, county seat of Perry County
(Wikipedia map)

Hazard, Ky., was in the national spotlight last week after photos went viral of a Hazard High School homecoming tradition: the "Man Pageant," in which male students dressed in lingerie gave simulated lap dances to seated school leaders. The "highly problematic incident ... could not have come at a worse time for an Eastern Kentucky town trying to bolster its image and craft a winning post-coal transition narrative," writes Alan Maimon in an opinion piece for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

It's difficult to lure new businesses to Eastern Kentucky, and this incident could make it more so. "Quality of life matters to CEOs. They look at everything that an area has to offer. Schools of course are on that list," Maimon writes. "This is a time of major economic transition for Hazard and the region and there is little margin for error. Unfortunately, any CEO (especially one with school-aged kids) who hears about the Hazard homecoming week story is now going to be even less likely to set up shop in the area."

Maimon recently wrote a book about his time as the Courier Journal's last Eastern Kentucky-based correspondent from 2000 to 2006. "Twilight in Hazard: An Appalachian Reckoning" is about Eastern Kentucky overall, he writes, but because Hazard was in the book's title, locals were upset that he didn't write more about thriving new businesses that had opened up downtown.

"They were also upset that I didn’t interview Hazard Mayor Donald 'Happy' Mobelini for the book. In light of recent events, I’m glad that I didn’t," Maimon writes. "Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but I was a bit wary of Mobelini. As we now know, Mobelini is not only mayor, he is also the Hazard High School principal who took part in tawdry homecoming week events."

However, Maimon did give Mobelini a platform to tout his office's accomplishments during the book tour visit. "More impressive than anything he said or showed me was the undeniable can-do spirit I sensed from the highly motivated professionals working to revitalize Hazard," Maimon writes. "This self-inflicted wound can only hurt those efforts."

Many Hazard residents are defending Mobelini and blaming outsiders for the tempest, "but such outspoken support of an event at which scantily clad male students gave Mobelini lap dances and female students dressed up as Hooter’s servers has a lot of people beyond Hazard city limits shaking their heads," Maimon writes. "I would like to think that the people working diligently for Hazard know that the school incident and its aftermath are major blemishes on the town’s reputation. How the situation plays out will say a lot about whether Hazard is ready for the brighter future it says is already here."

Quick hits: Rural libraries could become telehealth hubs; book details Black Appalachians' coal camp experiences

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

A new book details the overlooked experience of Black Appalachians in coal camps. Read more here.

Commentary: Rural libraries could use newly available funding opportunities and technologies to become a major player in providing telehealth access. Read more here.

Many rural high-school students want to take Advanced Placement courses, which can award college credit, but school staffing, budgets, and broadband access can make that difficult. Read more here.

More states are considering and passing bills to grant overtime pay to farmworkers. Read more here.

Applications open for paid USDA summer internships for high school and up, virtual and in-person

Applications are now open for U.S. Department of Agriculture summer internships through the federal Pathways Program. The program offers a wide range of paid internships for students in high school through the graduate level with on-the-job experience, mentorship, and training tailored to each student's interests and needs.

The internships span a wide range of occupations, including veterinary science, engineering, natural resources management, finance and more. Positions are open in almost every state, and some are virtual. 

The deadline for summer 2021 internship applications is Nov. 16. Click here for more information.

Our nominee for best 2020 high-school graduation editorial

By Laurie Ezzell Brown
The Canadian (Tex.) Record

In my own version of social isolation, I’ve spent as many free hours as possible studying the birds and squirrels and hummingbirds that inhabit my backyard, thinking perhaps I could learn something of solitude.

Lured by a plentiful supply of seeds and a frequently-refilled bird bath, they have all neatly assembled a life there, complete with its own pecking order and its own social justice system.

These backyard denizens take little note of any human, unless one is foolish enough to invade their space. I made that mistake recently, climbing a ladder to the roof in order to replace a wind-blown vent cap. Truly, hell hath no fury like a grackle defending its nest. I made my repairs, as quickly as the steeply-pitched, hot metal rooftop allowed, and ceded the territory back to black fury.

One weekend, John and I decided to remove a couple of dead tree branches. Hours later, and too many trips to the city tree pile to count, we were still sawing and loading and hauling. That evening, having cleared a small forest and expended every drop of energy we possessed between us, we idled on the back patio, tracking the well-traveled path of the squirrel family in residence.

The hunter/gatherer of the bunch made frequent trips down one tree trunk, sprinting the length of the picket fence, and scrambling up the third mock pear tree and into the branches, where he leapt from one to another with great assurance and ease, and with no small measure of panache. Up to the rooftop, then quickly back down, he retreated along the same route he had just navigated. He sent the songbirds at the feeder scattering and briefly confronted the fat doves perched atop the pickets as they scanned the ground, waiting for seeds to fall.

Wings flapped, feathers flew, the squirrel chattered as the birds pecked. A cease-fire treaty was reached, if not an accord. On went the bushy-tailed rodent, scrambling up the trunk of the old elm tree and launching into the branches, darting and dancing from one to another, until he skidded—claws scraping—to a sudden stop.

Where is that branch I’ve climbed, lo these many years? The one that led heavenward, back to my nest, my sanctuary? He retraced his steps, searching for an alternate route, a detour. There was none to be found. Down to the sun-scorched carport roof, where he skittered and scratched, not daring to stop. Alas, there was no escape. He ascended again, returning to his familiar path, hoping it had all been some terrible mistake.

Finally, the decision was unavoidable. He eyed the supple, still-green branch several feet away, accelerated and leapt, flying through the now-empty air and reaching—grasping—for that thin lifeline. His sudden weight bowed the branch. As it bent, he lost his purchase and slid, still clutching, until the branch suddenly sprang back. Propelled through the air, he reached—with all his small might—for the rung above, and lifted himself to safety.

I’ve not seen the squirrel take that same path since, but he did survive and seems unscarred by the grave danger he momentarily faced.

It made me think of how we, too, have been dislodged lately. Confronted by what Canadian High School Salutatorian Melody Hood referred to as “an evil protein capsid with destructive genetic material,” we have been forced to abandon our well-worn routes and are finding new patterns and approaches to old tasks, facing unknown perils and feeling that fleeting exhilaration when we succeed at something we once feared. Testing ourselves. Realizing we can and will survive—or at least, many of us will.

Our students and parents and teachers and school staff and administrators—removed from the familiar and safe and known—have leapt and risked falling, rebounded and soared higher, and found new ways to cross the cavernous void of time and space that seems always to loom ahead. They have relied on each other in ways they had not known they could. They have discovered strength and knowledge within themselves, and risked going it alone. They have worked harder, learned more, exceeded their grasp, and prevailed. Talk about class.

Yes, you are all the Class of 2020. And however much we hope to resume some semblance of normal next year, we no longer doubt our ability to meet and surmount the challenges ahead.