BEIRUT: When the 70 seniors of Beirut’s American Community School don their caps and gowns next week, they will have extra cause to be excited.

Not only will they receive their high school diplomas on June 3, they will also become the 100th group of ACS students to do so.

A lot has changed at the school in the past 100 years, says headmaster George H. Damon Jr., and he plans to keep the change coming.

Founded in 1905 by Americans from the nearby American University of Beirut (then called the Syrian Protestant College), ACS’s first class graduated in 1911.

In an interview with The Daily Star, Damon said that the school’s centennial celebration was “very muted” because the end of the 2005-2006 school year fell during the Israel-Lebanon war.

2006 was not the first time ACS dealt with conflict, but Damon says that “school never closed during the [Civil] War.” At 1,000 in 1975, enrolment dropped as low as 120 during the war.

It was during the Civil War, in 1986, that ACS began to admit Lebanese students, who now make up about 70 percent of its student body. There are now more than 1,000 students at the school, who come from some 45 countries.

Of the Lebanese student population, Damon says that “every confessional group” is represented.

“After the war in the summer of 2006, school started and at that time the whole country was talking about sectarianism.

Right down into the elementary school, the kids were talking about it. The high school students came in and said ‘we don’t want our school to be like this.’”

The students, says Damon, created a “safe sect” environment, which meant they would not refer to the politics or sects of their parents. “Within 3 weeks,” says Damon, “there was no longer any discussion of sect” at ACS.

But ACS doesn’t shy away from controversy. In addition to its innovative arts education program and emphasis on Modern Standard Arabic, the school boasts a thriving culture of debate that extends from “how often you can eat French fries in the cafeteria” to politics.

“We require the study of 20th century Middle Eastern history … We’re in the middle of a hugely dynamic time in the Middle East.

All sorts of questions are being asked of governments and people. People are literally putting their lives on the line … That is part of our history and it is part of what we will discuss.”

Despite its reputation as an expensive private school, Damon says that for seven years ACS has had a “merit need” program that now funds tuition and all other expenses for around 35 students. Other students receive varying amounts of financial aid.

Next week’s centennial graduation will be at AUB’s Assembly Hall, as is traditional. “Like every school, [the graduation] has a lot of pomp and circumstance,” says Damon. But at the ACS ceremony, “you stand up and you hear the Lebanese National Anthem and you hear the U.S. National Anthem.”

This is part of what Damon calls ACS’ “bridging mission” between cultures.

The school “started out as the stepchild of AUB, then established itself as a fully independent international school, and now is a fully independent national-international school.”

At the bicentennial graduation in another 100 years, Damon expects “people will still scream and yell, they’ll jump around, and they’ll cry a lot. I don’t think any of that is going to change.” But as graduation emotion stays constant, ACS itself will continue to evolve.

“Education used to be all about answers,” Damon says, “but ACS is trying to give students the opportunity to ask those questions that adults are uncomfortable with people asking.”

“We’re already starting the process of transforming into an institution that is about questions, not about answers.”