As families gather on New Year’s Eve, many will mark the transition with Auld Lang Syne, that haunting melody that invites us to honor what has passed while embracing what lies ahead. Robert Burns, himself a collector and preserver of Scotland’s oral traditions, would have appreciated our work here at CLASSICAL. We too gather fragments of wisdom from the past, polish them with care, and pass them forward. When Burns transcribed those words in 1788, he captured something essential about human nature: our need to hold meaningful moments close, to remember “days gone by” not with nostalgia but with genuine gratitude.
The song marks transitions meaningfully. Just as its melody bridges one year to the next, our students have crossed their own thresholds this year. Under the guidance of faculty who foster wonder, self-discipline, and appreciation for beauty, these transitions become transformation.
When we sing Auld Lang Syne, we enact the very fellowship we cultivate daily. These shared experiences, multiplied across 950 students and countless classroom hours, create bonds that will endure beyond graduation.
As you gather over the holidays, I encourage you to make Auld Lang Syne a family tradition. If the melody is unfamiliar, take a few moments to learn it together. The simple tune carries easily once heard. Share with your children what you remember from this remarkable year. In this small ritual, you create a bridge between past and future, teaching them that some things deserve to be carried forward deliberately and with reverence.
What a year we have to remember!
In the August heat, we opened the doors to our new Summit Park campus, watching students explore hallways that still smelled of fresh paint while parents marveled at everything from the hallway artwork to the science labs awaiting their first experiments. We welcomed 200 new students and 33 new faculty and staff members into our community in 2025. Our inaugural high school class began tackling Euclid’s propositions and studying Vitruvius’s architectural principles. Fall afternoons brought the thunder of our first football season, while November afternoons echoed with the disciplined intensity of our new wrestling program. Through launching Citadel Life, our upper school students discovered camaraderie through shared challenge and mentorship. Each milestone represents not just growth in numbers but deepening of purpose.
As we step into the quiet of Christmas break, we do so with profound gratitude. To our students who have embraced challenge with courage. To our faculty who have built something extraordinary from blueprints and ideals. To our parents who entrusted us with their children during this year of ambitious beginnings. Together, we have taken raw space and new programs and transformed them into a living educational community.
So as the final days of 2025 unfold, let us remember and give thanks—for a new campus filled with purpose, for programs that tested our strength and revealed our character, for the 233 new members of our community who now share our mission. Let us greet 2026 with hope and determination, confident that what we have built together will endure and flourish.
And if you listen carefully enough on New Year’s Eve, you just may hear the Headmaster himself marking the moment with Auld Lang Syne on the highland bagpipes.
Torches Up!
Mr. Michael Rose
Headmaster
Mr. Michael Rose, Headmaster
Mr. Rose has taught various courses at Brown University, Cincinnati Moeller, and The Summit Country Day School. As a part of his degree work in education, Mr. Rose’s research interests included the Great Books curriculum, the Paideia teaching method, and the “effects of emerging digital technology on student reading, writing, and researching.” Read More