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The Friends Meeting School community, a private Quaker school in Ijamsville, said that choosing Sept. 11 as the day to dedicate its high school building was a solemn, deliberate decision.
Annette Breiling, the head of the school, spoke at the dedication, saying the harm caused to the nation in the 2001 terrorist attacks should be counterbalanced by something positive. In keeping with traditions of the Religious Society of Friends, or the Quakers, Friends Meeting School is dedicated to the belief in a society where the power of love and tolerance can overcome hatred. Breiling said students at the school were asked recently to remember the sense of community service that followed those tragic attacks, and to carry it with them always.
Friends Meeting School's new building — which will house seventh-, eight- and ninth-graders as well as multipurpose classrooms and a gymnasium — began serving students on Sept. 8.
The ribbon untying ceremony was attended by state and local politicians, as well as the members of the community who made the 21,000-square-foot, two-story building happen.
The completion of the new building has nearly tripled the instructional space at the school, which has been operating in two smaller buildings totaling about 12,000 square feet, Breiling said.
Currie Powers, a social studies teacher at the school, said Quaker education goes beyond facts and figures, and instills a sense of responsibility to one's society. He said the responsibility of teachers at such a school is to show the students how to live good lives.
"We teach our students how to let their lives speak [for their beliefs]," Powers said.
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D) of Pikesville spoke at the dedication, recalling the call to service that Americans felt after the Sept. 11 attacks. "[Friends Meeting School] teaches those values," he said. "We can all make a difference."
Irene McHenry, executive director of the national Friends Council on Education, said students at Friends Meeting were carrying on a 320-year tradition of Quaker education, and that the school was one of the only Quaker schools in the country to offer pre-kindergarten through high school classes. McHenry told the students she hopes they learn courage and vision at the school, quoting St. Francis of Assisi, who said "start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible and suddenly, you are doing the impossible."
Maddy Schoap, a seventh-grader and student government representative, said she has been a student at Friends Meeting School since she was in kindergarten. Maddy said she and her fellow students were delighted to begin the year in the spacious new building. "I can fit in the lockers," she said.
But for some families, this was the first year of school, and their children were too young yet to spend their full educational day at the new building.
Jesse and Jen Mills, recently moved to Johnsville from Berkeley Springs, W.Va., where their sons Kyle, 8, and Eyrie, 6, were homeschooled. The Mills enrolled them at Friends Meeting School because they wanted their children to be taught in a Quaker school. Their children were also happy to start out at the school. "Kyle said he wished that he could go on weekends," Jesse Mills said.
E-mail Christian Brown at chbrown@gazette.net.
