Emma Graduates from High School

We are so proud of Emma. She took a seriously difficult course load and stuck with it all the way through. She isn't a perfect student but she is an amazing one. She has learned the art of the argument. From childhood she was a dedicated arguer, but as she has gone through school she has developed her skills, in both supporting and countering. She took 9 AP courses over the 4 years and lots of GT and Honors classes and came through with a very high weighted GPA because of it.

Emma was invited to the Senior Awards Ceremony where a few dozen seniors were recognized for their exceptional academics. Emma received the AP Scholar with Distinction. Em spent the past few week going to meetings and ceremonies and collected 5 honor cords. She braided them and it made a wonderful visual statement. We are proud of her love of knowledge.

Then on Graduation day her old middle school crew got together with families before the ceremony. We parents were a bit keyed up, while I feel like the girls were just ready to get it done. Hanna joined us at the party but then we dropped her off with friends for the ceremony, which we expected to be long.

The Graduation was held at UMBC in the RAC arena. We got good seats together with the other families and we had a good view of the students and of the stage. I caught Emma's eye as she came in. They did a great job of moving through the ceremony. People were introduced and they got right to it. The comments were short and direct. Mr. Ames, the Principal, made special comment of this being his first year at CHS. We parents also were gratified to see the middle school principal, Mr. Thorne. We spoke to him afterward and he got teary, this class was special to him as it was his first class to take all the way through middle school. The student speakers were also clear and pretty solid. The longest part of course was the conferring of dipolmas. I think the class size was 472, but it was more like 430 at the ceremony. The students lined right in front of us as they approached the stage so it was fun to watch expressions. It all went well and the school concert orchestra did a wonderful job with the music. In all it was about 1 1/2 hours, plus 30 minutes of trying to find our Grad outside in the courtyard.

She is Done, and she did it Well!
Congratulations Emma!