Athletics

ALL-SCHOOL Welcome Back Assembly

Azureé Harrison,

2ND GRADE TEACHER:

Hey, GDS Hoppers! Welcome to our first-ever all-school welcome back assembly. Hey, Greg!

Greg Dallinger,

HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER:

Good afternoon, Azureé! It’s great to join you to emcee this assembly.

Visit the online magazine to watch clips from the assembly.

GDS’s first all-school assembly wasn’t quite the gathering we’d been imagining since our unification process began, but with the help of dozens of community members and our two emcees, it was a joyful—albeit virtual—celebration of the new school year as a newly unified school.

We...

...inaugurated the GDS Torch Run and watched the Mighty Hopper take the symbolic GDS torch on a tour of the city before passing it to a member of the senior class and then down to representatives of each grade to our newest, youngest Hoppers…

...watched our Lower, Middle, and High School principals set an example for how to ROLL with all the changes we’ve seen during the pandemic... ...laughed as Russell sang Celine Dion’s rendition of the Eric Carmen song “All By Myself” from the roof of our new Lower/ Middle School building, while looking down on a unified but empty campus...

...listened to a performance of our school song by our Lower/Middle School music teachers…

...were enchanted by a virtual meeting of seniors and Pre-K and Kindergarten buddies, whose unfiltered authenticity may just make you fall in love with the school all over again...

...and watched a throwback video of the Class of 2021 when they performed as 5th graders in the 2014 Lower School Dance Assembly.

More than 800 unique devices connected, and sometimes as many as four family members connected via a single device—but who’s counting?! We know it’s not the numbers that count. As the first All-School Welcome Back Assembly reminded us all, it’s COMMUNITY that COUNTS.

GDS PRESENTS AND THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY SPEAKER SERIES

In the spring of 2020, during the first weeks of the COVID-19 lockdown, GDS launched a series of presentations by experts in our community to inform, inspire, and entertain during our time apart. In honor of GDS’s 75th anniversary, “GDS Presents” has continued with the 75th Anniversary Speaker Series this fall. The series has featured luminaries in the entertainment industry and the judicial system, in journalism and politics, and in the fight for social justice. Nearly all of our panelists have been GDS alumni, parents, alumni parents, or longtime friends of the community.

“I was a kid who was resistant to loving learning. That started changing at GDS, and I think the arts was a really important space for me...I feel grateful both for the spark at the beginning and the continued community.”

– ETHAN SLATER ’10, ENTERTAINMENT IN THE TIME OF COVID

A.J. Weissbard ’91 Ahmad Jones ’14, Khalil Jones ’14, and Malik Jones ’14 Alisa Klein Dr. Amanda Castel Judge Andre Davis Becca Roux Cait Clarke and Malia Brink Judge Casey Cooper Danielle Glosser DeMaurice Smith Ethan Slater ’10 Frank Foer ’92 Gina Gionfriddo ’87 Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman Representative Jamie Raskin ’79 Dr. Jennifer Joyner-Hall Dr. Jennifer Verbesey Julie Fanburg ’89 Juliet Eilperin ’88 Attorney General for the District of

Columbia Karl Racine Kate Julian Kelly AuCoin ’85 Judge Ketanji Jackson Laura Rosberg Dr. Lucile Adams-Campbell Lulu Garcia-Navarro Dr. Mark Klaiman and Adam Gershowitz Matthew Kaminski ’90 Molly Levinson Judge Nina Pillard Nina Totenberg Dr. Sanjay Desai Sashi Brown Sean Fine ’92 and Andrea Nix Fine Terence Carter ’97

“There were two great legal pioneers in the 20th century who really transformed the meaning of the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment, as both lawyers and as Supreme Court justices, and both of them were part of the GDS family. Yes, Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

– REPRESENTATIVE JAMIE RASKIN ’79, THE LEGACY OF JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG

“Dr. King famously said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.’ Judge Cooper, Judge Davis, Attorney General Racine, you are three citizens who have been bending the arc...I cannot think of a better way to honor the start of Georgetown Day School’s 75th year than with this conversation, which is so at the heart of who we are and who we aspire to be as an institution.”

ACCESS RECORDINGS OF ALL GDS PRESENTS EVENTS ONLINE.

– HEAD OF SCHOOL RUSSELL SHAW, RACE, JUSTICE, AND THE AMERICAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM