2025 9th Grade Matriculation Ceremony

Congratulations to our 9th Grade students on their Matriculation into High School! At The Grauer School, the Matriculation Ceremony marks students' official commencement to The Grauer High School community. Matriculation is an esteemed, traditional ceremony. In the formal English traditions at the universities in Oxford and Cambridge, the term is used for the ceremony at which new students are entered into the register (in Latin, matricula) of the university, at which point they become members of the university. Students wear academic dress and enter in a formal procession. The Grauer School matriculation is less formal, but meaningful to who we are as a community. Each year, the students receive sweatshirts with the school's name and the students' graduation year not just to symbolize their enhanced connectivity to the school's community, but to mark our confidence in their journey to adulthood. 

Grauer 9th Grade students were matriculated and officially welcomed to high school at The Grauer School in a special ceremony on Tuesday, October 21. The ceremony began with a procession of the 9th Grade students into Meyer Hall, through a threshold of percussion created by Clayton Payne, Billy B. '26, and Raina N. '26 on the drums, symbolic of all the "noise" in life that might distract them from their true purpose. Academic Support Dean Clayton Payne was the emcee for the event. He gave a speech about rites of passage, liminality, and the adventures that the matriculates will have during their transition from childhood to being adults over the next 4 years. During these formative experiences, he emphasized the support they will receive from all of their Grauer teachers and the greater Grauer community along the way. 9th Grade student musicians Gwyneth M. '29, Leah S. '29, Zane Z. '29 and Dane P. '29 sang the song "Better Together", accompanied by Ty M. '26, Julien W. '26, and Music Teachers Isaac Langen and Tom Hopper. The event continued with the reading of "Roster of Matriculates" by Principal Alicia Tembi. As each name was read, students cast a piece of dissolving rice paper into a bowl of water, on which was a note about something they were either going to cast away or steer towards in this next phase of life. Then, they shook hands with Head of School Dana Abplanalp-Diggs and received their special "Grauer Class of 2029" sweatshirt as their matriculation gift, formally donning the colors of our community.