LOCH SHELDRAKE, NY — The Homestead School’s innovative Collaborative College High School (CCHS), a groundbreaking joint venture with SUNY Sullivan, celebrated its first-ever commencement ceremony as 12 students were awarded their well-deserved high school diplomas in additional to college-level credits, presented in the local two-year college’s Seelig Theatre on Friday, June 13. 

Click here for more photos from the event. 

Following the traditional beginning processional, opening remarks to the assembly were presented by Jack Comstock, director of the Homestead School; SUNY Sullivan’s president David Potash; and Rose Hanofee, the college’s interim vice-president of academic and student affairs. 

In his remarks, Comstock referred to the ceremony as a “truly momentous occasion,” noting that the Homestead School was founded close to 50 years ago in Glen Spey by his inspired parents Peter and Marsha, “with a dream of creating a place for the young human soul to explore and flourish… Over the decades, that dream has grown, branching, stretching, adapting, deepening. Today, Homestead is a living ecosystem of learning.”

In briefly recounting the origin of what would become the collaborative high school, Comstock said that on a summer’s day in July 2020, he received a phone call from Patrick Dollard, then CEO of the Center for Discovery, who shared with him plans for establishing “an alternative county high school project.”

Dollard told Comstock the Maker’s Lab in Hurleyville was available and would be the perfect location for the Homestead School to expand into offering high school courses.

“In the fall of 2021, we opened our doors in Hurleyville,” he said.

Comstock explained that each graduate who has been with the CCHS for at least three years has already received an associate’s degree, and several will attend a four-year college with “significant scholarships and 60 or more credits of their degree already on record.” That includes Jason Gebhardt, who racked up 100 college credits through advanced studies in mathematics.

“SUNY Sullivan opened its doors to an early college experience, allowing our small school to provide a breadth and depth of study that would be hard to find elsewhere,” Comstock said.

“Coming from the lower campus, we were used to the sounds of chickens and goats filling in the silence between classes and playing in the woods for hours,” senior Colin Kinney said. “We studied life in the stream, used tactile materials to understand math concepts, and learned history through plays and activities... Coming to Hurleyville was a shift. I still vividly remember the first day at CCHS, which was also the school’s very first day of existence… the mixed feelings of fear and excitement that we all had… Here at CCHS, the path was not straightforward, and with every single stride we were stepping into the unknown.”

“Some people enter high school wondering what elective to take. I entered wondering if the school would even exist in four years,” senior Sindhu Villareal said. “The education we have received is definitely unique, and didn’t always have a clear finish line, but that’s exactly what made it ours… But over time, I saw that choosing the less conventional road gave me space to uncover unknown strengths. My time at Homestead and CCHS has fostered something special: a strong sense of self, the confidence to always try, and the persistence to continue even when things get tough.”

“My educational career began in a traditional way, in a typical blue-ribbon elementary school with accolades recognizing its superior education,” senior Natalie Westergreen said. “This so-called ‘superior education’ involved students sitting at a desk for hours on end listening to the teacher… The Homestead has made me into an eager learner, ready to take on any challenge. The results of this experiment of a high school have been undeniably extraordinary… The CCHS Class of 2025 will be remembered as a pioneer class, filled with humorous, vibrant, talented and bright students who can adapt, work hard and even constructively complain.” 

 Kabir Jebrane presented an animated and fascinating look into the past, as he explored the Homestead School’s relationship to the Munsee Lenape, in “Land Acknowledgement,” paying homage to the school’s location “on the ancestral and ongoing homelands” of the Indigenous peoples of the region.

“We affirm that the Munsee Lenape are not peoples of the past, they are sovereign nations with living cultures, languages and communities,” he said, adding, “The Lenape were forcibly displaced from these lands through settler colonialism and government policies of removal and erasure...The Ramapough [Lenape Nation] continue to assert their presence, protect sacred land and engage in cultural and environmental work.”

After the offering ceremony (see sidebar), it was time for Comstock and Michelle Ahart-Boland, the assistant director, to take turns awarding the high school diplomas to the proud Class of 2025.