'Resilient' Senior Class Graduates From Fairfield Warde: PHOTOS

FAIRFIELD, CT — It was a time to celebrate — but also to mourn the loss of a close-knit community — when the Fairfield Warde High School graduating class of 2021 held its goodbye ceremony Tuesday night at Jennings Beach.

“Warde is like family,” said senior Amalia Barroso, 17, who will be studying psychology at Quinnipiac University.

Though she’s looking forward to moving on and doing more with her education, she said it was still a bittersweet sense of loss.

“These are the kids you grow up with,” she said of the 390 seniors with whom she shared so many years.

The enormous parking lot at Jennings Beach was filled with hundreds of cars in a variation on last year’s coronavirus pandemic-era ceremony. Large screens afforded views of the speakers, while many families brought picnic dinners and tailgated behind a sea of cars festooned with decorations of congratulations.

“We’re just so happy to have graduation tonight,” said Paul Cavanna, head principal. “It’s been a long, challenging year, but this senior class is resilient, and we’re happy to celebrate their success.”

Cavanna, along with the majority of the school faculty, stood along the entrance to the parking lot, welcoming the graduates and their families in.

“I’m really proud of my students that are graduating,” said Amanda Kirik, principal of the Walter Fitzgerald Campus. “It’s been quite a year, and they’ve overcome a lot.”

“This is the best spot to do it,” observed graduate Dennis Toslluku, 18, who’ll be studying computer science at the University of Tennessee.

While he said last year felt kind of “iffy” in regard to online learning, things eventually came together.

A member of both the football and wrestling teams, he said best of all he’ll remember the school spirit he saw at the Mustang games.

For Jason Vasquez, 18 — who moved to town from New York City when he was 13 — getting acclimated to a new place was made much easier by the great friends he found at Warde. Now he’s bound for college at Housatonic Community College, where he’ll study psychology.

“I’m so proud of him,” said his father, Isaac Vasquez. “After the pandemic and everything, he finally made it, and he’s going to continue.”

Valedictorian Jack Davis, 17, described the graduation as being surreal, not only for the end of four years at the school, but also 15 very strange months due to the pandemic.

"It's just been quite an experience," he said.

He said it was cliché, but as he departs he is thinking about the people he has known and the experiences he has had.

"Warde is just a building, without the people inside," he said.