A Fond Farewell

I have used this space often in the last 15 years to ask and answer questions as, with all due respect to the unbounded promise of ChatGPT, I continue to believe that there is simply no better, surer, more satisfying and enduring way to figure something out than to wrestle with and subdue it by writing about it. My formula for doing so is pretty straightforward (as if that is a surprise): Ask a question, wring my hands for a paragraph or two and then find answers in the wisest group I know — our students.

From the start of the academic year, as Maureen and I have contemplated the close of our 15-year relationship with Princeton Day School, we’ve tried to place our rich, varied experience in some meaningful perspective and capture the immense beauty of the place and its people. At the same time, as I pass the portrait of our first head of school, Doug McClure, many times each day, I have begun to seek an answer to that most urgent question we all will likely ask at some point in our lives: Will anyone remember?

How timely it was when, just a week or so ago, two of my junior advisees arrived in my office with their own personal, urgent questions. It went something like this: “Mr Stellato, we know you’re leaving and everything, but you’re still going to write us a college recommendation, right? And you’re still going to be a head of school, right? That will count, won’t it?”

Asked and answered!

At the close of my tenure (and as I try one last time to figure out why Wi-Fi doesn’t work in two of the Behr House bedrooms), Maureen and I thank you for welcoming and embracing us. We will keep you close always, for with and among you we have found our hearts’ content on the Great Road. Should we lose it for even a moment as we begin our next adventure, we need only to recall your many kindnesses and the faith and trust you placed in us along the way.

We have cherished these opportunities of a lifetime you have offered us. Every day.

Paul J. Stellato Head of School