Relatives and Special Friends Day 2023

On April 28, approximately 600 guests got a chance to “look under the hood” of Stephen Gaynor School during the school’s traditional Relatives and Special Friends Day. From impressive alumni panelists to engaging classroom visits, the goal was to showcase Gaynor’s mission at work.

Head of School Dr. Scott Gaynor welcomed special guests from around the country and as far away as Sweden and Denmark to the event, saying, “It's really hard to encapsulate what a Gaynor education is in the short amount of time that you're here, but we hope as you walk through the halls, as you see some of the great work that our children are doing, as you see some of our teachers working with our children, that you get a little taste for what’s special about Gaynor and how we really take pride in individualizing the education for every single child who walks through our doors.”

The morning session featured a panel discussion with Zia Uehling ’19 and Charlie Manzano ’19, and Holly Rosen ’18 and Aaron Kuper ’20 joined the afternoon session. Charlie joined Gaynor in the Early Childhood program and will be attending Wesleyan University in the fall. When asked about skills he learned at Gaynor that he still uses today, he said, “Because Gaynor taught me to accept my own differences, I learned to accept other people's differences.

What I liked about Gaynor is it really encouraged us to have these difficult conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion and how we all have these different backgrounds and perspectives and cultural identities, but our diversity is not what makes us weaker, it's what makes us stronger and it's what brings us together.”

Following the formal program in the Performing Arts Center, the guests spread throughout the school as they visited their Gaynor students to see their classrooms, meet their teachers, and find out a bit about what they had been working on every day. Students across the buildings were beaming with pride as they demonstrated their work, the skills they have built, and their love of learning.