THE FIRST FXD GRADUATING CLASS
n the summer of 1549, Jesuit leader Saint Francis Xavier arrived
in Kagoshima, becoming the first Christian missionary to bring
the gospel message to Japan. Over four and a half centuries later,
Xaverian Brothers High School opened its namesake middle school
program—the Francis Xavier Division—and 120 seventh graders,
much like their patron saint, found themselves trailblazers of an exciting
and experimental prospect.
Experimental is exactly the word to describe that first day in September
of 2014. Mr. Joshua Tranfaglia, who was hired that same year as a seventh-
grade social studies teacher and now serves as Assistant Principal for
Student Life, explains, “Xaverian is really good at educating high school
boys, and that first year we didn’t know what to expect with middle school
boys. Being the first FXD class, the Class of 2020 has a badge of honor;
they were the experiment, and they were the result of the experiment.
Te middle school program looks the way it does now because they went
through it first.”
But this is Xaverian afer all. With innovation came
preparation, and lots of it. “People don’t realize,” says Mr.
Jay McGilvray, Assistant Principal of the FXD, “that the
idea of a middle school program was many years in the
making before the official announcement in 2013.” Te
FXD was the product of four years of planning and
construction, confronting the logistical and practical
measures needed to integrate a fully-functioning
middle school into an already
fully-functioning high school.
Brother Daniel Skala, C.F.X.,
who served as Xaverian’s
headmaster during the
integration of the FXD
program, says that “for many years, parents
and alumni had been asking Xaverian to
open up a middle school.” A survey was
created to gauge interest and the results
By Nicholas Daoust ’21, Communications Corps
showed “overwhelming support.” “In 2010,” Brother Dan recounts, “the
Board of Trustees and school administration began developing a master
plan for the campus”—a plan which included the new Wellness Center and
science labs, as well as more field space and parking to accommodate the
growing student population.
Alongside the various construction projects underway, Brother Dan
and then-principal Mr. Domenic Lalli, P ’98, were also tasked with hiring
staff specialized in developing a new environment within Xaverian for
the incoming middle schoolers. Brother Dan calls the appointment of
Mr. McGilvray (previously a Xaverian English teacher and coach) as
Assistant Principal of the FXD one of the most important decisions of the
process, and acknowledges the strength of Mr. Steinbergher’s crucial FXD
counseling and study skills programs. Once these preliminary faculty were
hired, a group was formed to seek out the most “experienced and talented
teachers” for the middle school; many of these first FXD teachers, including
Mr. Tranfaglia, Mr. Jay Iannoni ’02, and Mr. Stephen Brennen, still serve as
Xaverian faculty and staff.
When the Class of 2020 arrived on campus in September
of 2014 as seventh graders, they were pioneers of the program
that, by the time of their graduation, had become a polished
and quintessential part of Xaverian’s identity. For the teaching
staff, it was immediately clear that educating seventh graders
necessitated a different approach than teaching high schoolers.
“I learned it is really more about the relationships than the
subjects,” Mr. Iannoni remarks. “As educators, we
can spend a lot of time focusing on lesson plans
and making tests, but it is in the day-to-day
interactions with our students that we really
can make a difference.”
As much as the FXD was and is its
own entity within Xaverian, the Class of
2020 showed how important it was
to have integrated learning
CLASS OF 2020 IN 2014
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