Young Grads

This is the time of year when youngsters graduate and teachers (and parents) breath a sigh of relief. Today was the day the students graduated my wife's school whose classrooms are located on the campus of Keys Community College. Carol, my wife's boss, kicked off the ceremonies at the College's Tennessee Williams Theater:Graduation ceremonies all over the world are the same or similar I guess, and being child free all I can really remember is my own liberation from English boarding school life in 1975 and more recently graduating myself from the College after years of messing around finally getting my studies done. Keys Center Academy is an unusual school for girls who are in high school but not making it on the general campus. This specialized intensive schooling gets the support of the Administration and the School Board. Chair John Dick, on the right below, has been an indefatigable champion of the center, and outgoing member Andy Griffiths on the left has too and will be missed.
Reverend Sarah Fowler, Deacon at the congregations of St Peter's and St Paul's episcopal churches is a well known voice for charities around Key West and offered up her words of support for the new graduates as well at the convocation. The school's various outgoings, field trips and goofs around the classrooms were recorded and presented on a slide show because in a school with less than two dozen students everyone is friends with, and dramatic participants with, everyone else.My wife is not technically a Principal in the District because her school is technically part of Key West High School but she has of course made some friendships with people over the three years the Academy has been operating and she is always going on about the principal at Gerald Adams school, and this year she snagged Frannie Herrin to speak and speak she did, upbeat cheerful and brief (as she promised she would be).And there they were all angelic in white, and tearful and emotional and grateful for the second chance they got, after heading for failure elsewhere in their short lives.I watched one mum I know eyes glued to her offspring on stage and later we laughed about the relief of getting it done, a landmark success and a glorious first step in what was a wobbly academic career.
You, she graduated, FCATs and all the other horrors of modern standardized testing behind her...for now.These girls have been turned around thanks to individualized class work, close attention by teachers and endless patience "...I know I wasn't the easiest student to deal with..." is a common theme at Keys Center graduations.We live in parlous times for education in America and our leaders scream about paying taxes, and cutting deficits and not creating jobs and on and on and on but here one can see the impact of supporting these marginal students, of making a contract with them that if they apply themselves they will be driven to graduate.

The most painful part of the contract they sign is to give up their cell phones at the beginning of each school day. And if they don't show up for school these students live with the absolute certainty that their parents will be contacted. And if they don't fulfill their contracts they will be kicked out. In an era when discipline and deadlines are scorned by schools and rejected by unsupportive parents Keys Center Academy with rigid rules and requirements is an example other schools, and other parents could learn to imitate. "The teachers care..." is another common theme around here. And the big bugaboo of never giving up is often spoken of by the students.

My wife hates saying goodbye to the successful students but by next September, two weeks into the new school year she'll be all over the next bunch, planning success strategies for them. Luckily the outgoing superintendent and his replacement Jesus Jara have both pledged their support for Keys Center Academy as the district struggles with a nine percent cut in a 90 million dollar budget.

Cathy sang, everyone got dewy eyed...

...and then we hit the buffet table.

I cheered my wife on and thought about the end of school on Friday and summer vacations, once held to allow kids to help bring in the harvest and now practiced as a tradition and little else. I think she'll sleep soundly for a week before she starts planning next year's classroom tactics.