Resilience Marks Road To Commencement

Weeks before her class was to graduate from Hamden High, Xavier Rawlings was without a home and struggling to keep up with school work. With the help of teachers, she made it through a credit recovery program during the final days of June — and took a ceremonial selfie, diploma in hand, on a commencement stage with hundreds of cheering supporters behind her.

Rawlings was one of 400 Hamden High School seniors to walk away with a general education degree at a graduation ceremony Wednesday evening following four years of fluctuating feelings of isolation and uncertainty.

Though she didn’t have high-honors tassels draped around her neck or academic awards dripping on a resume, Rawlings was able to recognize herself as a representative of resilience during a wave of school graduations celebrating the strength and adaptability of pandemic-impacted students. (Read about other local graduations that stuck with that theme here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Amid rainy weather, family and friends packed onto the bleachers of HHS’s football field underneath a collective shield of umbrellas to honor a community of teenagers, teachers, town residents and caretakers who overcame consistent challenges to make youth safer and smarter while maintaining a culture of joy and love.

Rawling’s story reflected those challenges — and the way a caring school can serve as an anchor for teens navigating stormy seas.

As a transgender teen suffering from anorexia and bulimia, Rawlings struggled with self-image. After moving from Manchester, Connecticut, to Hamden her sophomore year of high school and separating from her parents, she was also struggling financially.

“I was like a bird in a cage,” Rawlings stated when describing why she moved out of her parent’s home. ​“I’m a bald eagle. I wanted to take off.”

“So then, I was living in a shelter,” she said. ​“I paid for my own clothes, my own shoes. When I was 17 I was on the streets dibbling and dabbling in things.”

When she began attending Hamden High, Rawlings was granted access to free meals at breakfast and lunch along with the rest of her peers.

“I had a place to learn, and a place to learn to eat,” she said. Structured meal times, and constant availability to a ​“cart of sandwiches,” helped her understand the importance of balance.

“I would come into Hamden High and get a compliment from [security guard] Lamond Battle,” she said. ​“I was feeling like I was actually beautiful. It made me feel it was OK to look in the mirror.”

Beyond The "Bad Rap"

Rawlings was not alone in confronting challenges outside school while finding a way to make it to graduation. Graduation speeches detailed the hardships overcome, large and small, by members of the senior class.

“Remember that in the end, you won’t be remembered solely by the degrees you earned or the cords you wore,” Jody Goeler, who is retiring, told the crowd at his final graduation ceremony as superintendent of schools, ​“but by the lives you’ve touched. And that includes mine.

“Thank you for showing us that our future is endlessly adaptable,” he said.

“The young adults we are celebrating today have been faced with many obstacles,” Principal Nadine Gannon stated. ​“A global pandemic, an abrupt closure of school, hybrid and remote learning, closures due to social media threats, and the implementation of metal detectors.”

Plus, in May, two Hamden High students died in independent events. 15-year-old Elijah Gomez was targeted and shot while walking home from school on May 9; 16-year-old Isschar Howard drowned in Lyme on May 21.

“Although the news media reported on many of those incidents we were faced with, let us share some of the headlines they missed,” she began before listing the class’ dozens of achievements, from covering the school sidewalks with colorful chalk art and mailing Valentine’s Day cards to local senior citizens to delivering performances of original plays and crushing dance championships.

“Hamden gets a bad rap,” reflected salutatorian Sean McGarry. ​“I’m sure you have seen the local news like to park out in front of the school entrance, and it’s not to since our praises.”

But, he said, ​“over four years I’ve started to realize all the things Hamden High does well.” Hamden High was the first school in Connecticut to be certified as a ​“No Place For Hate” school by the Anti-Defamation League, he said. McGarry praised the administration for recently implementing gender neutral bathrooms as well as her peers for ​“somehow coming together to get midterms canceled.”

“Despite all its challenges, I’m incredibly proud to go to school here,” he concluded. ​“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be graduating from.”

“I often felt I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning,” Valedictorian Lily Kaffman confessed of her time trying to navigate the various dilemmas facing her each day she arrived at class. ​“I couldn’t pretend my heart wasn’t beating a million times a minute.”

“But on those days it was the community that helped me. It was my friends who encouraged me and gave me love and it was the strangers whose kind eyes in the hall made me feel seen.”

“Our student body is diverse, passionate, creative and kind. Each individual is completely unique, and yet there is always unity … There is no challenge on earth that could’ve stopped our community.”

Watch Out, Hollywood

Xavier Rawlings agreed that ​“the range of diversity in this place gives you a sense that it’s OK to be different.”

Rawlings credits her success to Hamden High’s flexible credit recovery program, the school community … as well as her ​“desires to be rich and famous” and social media. (Here’s her Tik Tok).

“When I was in middle school I found social media and realized: We can make videos, and we can tag each other, and we can communicate.”

“Now, my followers are my friends. I promote my sexiness, my confidence and my beauty. It gave me a way to stop worrying about people judging me.”

Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Kick, Rawlings said, all allowed her to reach new audiences and share her story with others, many of whom sent her cash and aimed to assist her as she made her way through school while operating as a financially independent teenager.

Now that she has secured a high school diploma, Rawlings said, she is looking to continue building her social media presence full-time with hopes to catch casting calls and modeling jobs.

“My plans are to be my own boss,” she grinned. ​“I want to be financially stable. To not be homeless anymore.

“I also want a role in Euphoria.”

In the more immediate future, Rawlings had pressing dinner reservations — she was reuniting with her family for a meal at New Haven’s Soul de Cuba following the diploma distribution.

“You’ll be seeing me on Hollywood Boulevard,” she promised. But, Rawlings said, she’ll still hold fond memories for Hamden High, ​“a place you don’t wanna leave — a place where you’re loved and nourished.”