Graduation is tonight.  The students who greeted me on my very first days teaching here at Putnam are parting ways with Putnam.  This class started as the first class in the new building and now they’re departing.  I’m so proud of them. These are amazing young adults.  Watching them grow from confused kids, just out of middle school, to who they are now is beyond comprehension.  They have job skills from their vocations.  They have diplomas.  They’re going on to trade schools and colleges, some are going full time into jobs that they’ve had for over a year and a half through the school.

Last year my first set of tenth graders graduated, and I was all kinds of emotional.  They were smart, talented, and as a class extremely driven. This class, the class of 2016, got lost along the way, but they figured it out in the end.  It took them – as a class – longer to figure out what they wanted.  It took them longer to focus.  But they got there.  In the end.

And I can’t wait to see them walk across the stage.