Last night, our Chamber Orchestra performed at the memorial service of Yoel Camayd Freixas, a man who was not only a great friend to our school, but a champion of public education throughout the community. He believed that education was the way to empowerment, justice, and democracy, and he worked tirelessly to provide equal access to the highest quality education. He loved music, and he understood its power to bring together a community to work for social change.

I could hear his dream alive in our children. Many of them never met Yoel, but each of them is a beneficiary of his legacy. Even more, they are now its custodians. We all are. As we look back on lives well lived-as we consider the people who have left our community better than they found it-we find a challenge. Who will continue the work for equality through education, for justice through strong communities? And who will prepare our children to take up these causes when we are gone?

As a school, we must answer this call together. We do it every day by giving our best work and our best selves to each child and expecting their best in return, by solving problems together, and by investing our time and energy in support of the community.

In memorializing friends and leaders who have shaped our community, we give thanks, we remember the lessons they taught us, and we look ahead to what they have left undone. Each of us can be an agent of change in the world.