Teacher Who Started Fourth Grade Day as a Student Now Leads Beloved Tradition

A Legacy of Connection: Fourth Grade Day Unites MDI Students Across Generations

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Swan Agency Real Estate.

BAR HARBOR—The thank you notes from the students have already been coming in to Brooke Gariepy, math teacher and National Honor Society advisor at Mount Desert Island High school.

You might expect a teacher to receive thank-you notes from students sometimes. It hardly seems news worthy, right?

But these thank you letters and notes weren’t from Gariepy’s students. At least, they aren’t her students yet.

The gratitude wasn’t necessarily about teaching either, not in the traditional way. It was about something else that Gariepy and her advisees have been quietly creating year after year after year: a legacy of civility and friendship and community all embodied in one annual day when fourth graders from all over Mount Desert Island (and beyond) schools come hang out and meet each other and have a good time.

“I think that this is an important event for fourth graders because it gives them an opportunity to meet and make connections with their other island peers. It also gives them a chance to see high school students as role models,” Gariepy said. “There are 24 seniors and 31 juniors in NHS. This event is important for them because it gives them the chance to learn how to plan and organize a big event. They had to contact fourth grade teachers and plan for color groups, order and get the bounce house and dunk tank set up, buy food and materials for arts and crafts, etc. It also is really important for the high school students to be leaders and role models to the younger students on our island. The connections that are formed between the fourth graders and high school students is amazing.”

The fourth graders played kickball. They cheered each other on obstacle courses. They dunked some very cold high school students. They did arts, crafts, bounced in a bounce house and had snacks.

It was more than that though.

What was happening on that field and track at Mount Desert Island High School—what’s been happening for the last nineteen years—is about building community.

For three hours, close to 100 fourth graders from Bar Harbor, NEH, SWH, Tremont, Trenton, and Swans Island came to the high school, May 15.

“I am incredibly happy with how the day went. I already received a packet of thank you notes from some fourth graders yesterday afternoon exclaiming how much fun they had,” Gariepy said.

Many of those letters named specific high school kids that the fourth graders connected with.

“I want to thank the fourth grade teachers who are wonderful, organized, and so supportive of this day. They play a big role in making sure that their students are prepared for the day. My NHS students really deserve the biggest shout out because they worked so hard to plan and execute this day,” Gariepy said.

“The goals of the day are to get island kids to know each other better and have fun!” Gariepy said.

Fun was had.

“Go! Go! Oh my gosh! YESSS!!!” yellow team members screamed at the obstacle course.

“That looks good,” one blue team member said to another after he drew a chalk outline around him.

“You think?”

“Yeah. It’s good.”

Two girls heading to the obstacle course started up a conversation.

“I know you, right?”

“I think so.”

“You had a cat. How is your cat?”

“Better!”

There were quiet moments, too, as fourth graders got to know each other better; as teachers quietly watched joy and hijinks, as origami cranes were folded, chalk drawings created, faces painted.

National Honor Society members consoled each other as they shivered at the dunk tank. They gleefully held signs for a round of red-light-green-light.

“This is the best day,” one teacher said.

It was.

“They have worked really hard,” Gariepy said.

Gariepy is the National Honor Society advisor at MDI High School and as she watched, laughed, and supervised the fourth graders with her honor society students, it was a moment where things came full circle.

”I created this fourth grade day in 2006 when I was a senior in National Honor Society. I was doing a fourth grade internship with Susan Hersey and thought it would be fun to bring the students to the high school,” she said. “Here we are 19 years later, still hosting this event!”

Some things are meant to stay.

“When I was doing my internship with Susan, I just thought that it would be a fun day and a good way to connect my two worlds (fourth grade internship and my high school). I NEVER imagined that fourth grade day would become an island wide tradition or that I would become the NHS advisor who is leading it,” Gariepy said.

All photos: Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story

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