NewCanaanite.com (https://newcanaanite.com/tag/bill-egan)
This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to New Canaan High School Principal Bill Egan about the NCHS Scholarship Foundation and the major fundraiser coming up to support it, the Color Drop, scheduled for Saturday, March 23. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:
For New Canaan High School Principal Bill Egan, there’s no better day than the first day of school. Newly arrived freshmen and returning students “bring life back into the building,” Egan told members of the Board of Education during their regular meeting Tuesday night. This academic year, NCHS welcomed nearly 1,270 students—including 52 who are new to New Canaan— who brought “ the energy only they could bring,” Egan said during a report on school openings.
“I want to thank you,” he told the Board during the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at NCHS. “It truly is an honor and privilege to be a New Canaan High School principal. There is no better job in the world than being a high school principal.
Michael LeDuc, a science teacher and department chair at New Canaan High School, once heard a colleague draw an important distinction that has stayed with him, between mere entertainment and the true fun that results from diligence. On Wednesday morning, he urged members of the NCHS senior class to make time for entertainment in their lives, but to understand that “there is a difference between entertainment and true, meaningful, lasting fun.”
“Don’t mistake entertainment for the good stuff—the meaningful and lasting fun that you earn through hard work,” LeDuc told the class of 2023 during its graduation ceremony, held at Dunning Field under overcast and comfortably warm skies.
“Look at your high school experience,” he continued. “You worked really hard to be where you are today, on this beautiful day. You took on many challenges, some out of necessity. You navigated high school through some of the most challenging educational obstacles in the last 100 years.
Alexandra Kurz, student body president for the New Canaan High School class of 2021, on Wednesday morning recalled memories she made throughout her public school career here, from West School Care Conventions to seventh-grade mat ball with Frank Arcamone and freshman year English with Maggie Hamill. “Our paths have all crossed at one point and that’s what makes us a family,” she told more than 370 fellow classmates gathered at Dunning Stadium on a sunny, clear day for their graduation ceremony. “Maybe I’m speaking for myself, but these past 13 years have flown by and I have learned so much from each and every one of you. I’ve also learned to see everything with an open mind and a full heart. You could argue that we had lots of things stripped from us in the past 14 months but frankly, I think it has brought us so much closer together.”
Families filled the stands on both sides of Dunning for the graduation of what district officials called the largest class in NCHS history, students that saw their school close with just a few months left in their junior year, and then navigated the college application process remotely and in many cases missed out on highly anticipated sports and other extracurricular activities their senior year.
“First-semester junior year, we were finally upperclassmen and counted down the days until we became seniors,” Kurz recalled.
The Board of Education last week voted unanimously to accept a donation of more than $32,000 from the New Canaan High School PFA for a new sign on the building as well as several outdoor tables for student use. NCHS Principal Bill Egan said the new plastic lettering at the “band entrance” on the north end of the school will serve to inform visitors and passersby on Farm Road of what the building is. “When you drive up Farm Road, you would not necessarily know what school this is,” Egan told members of the Board of Education during their March 15 meeting, held via videoconference. “So we have visitors who come in and they drive up and sometimes we will hear, is that the school?”
He shared an early-stage rendering of the planned sign from the chosen vendor, Hung Well Signs LLC. The same company did the “Home of the Rams” sign at the back of the school, overlooking Dunning Field.
Board of Ed member Penny Rashin thanked the PFA “for making these amazing donations that so improve the look and quality of our schools.”
“It’s just fantastic and I am just so appreciative as a Board of Ed member for all you do for our students,” Rashin said.