Going to College

This week Greene Early College held its graduation ceremony. I was asked by the graduating class to speak at their ceremony and proudly accepted. For this particular group of students, I was one of five principals that served at their school in five years. I joked in my message to them that they had probably been exposed to more leadership styles than most people twice their age. Despite that turnover, this group turned out to be one exceptional class of graduates from Greene County. Three students received full scholarships and the others assembled a collective scholarship offering of over $1.7 million. One student alone amassed $400,000 in offerings. That is pretty exceptional.

I strongly believe that the key ingredient in their success is an overwhelming quality that anyone quickly notices among this group. This group of students works together and celebrates each other.  I have honestly never seen another group of teenagers do this like they do it. The call each other a family and treat each other that way. They still have times of disagreement, but in that disagreement, they seek to find resolve. Maybe it's because they learned to depend on one another, or because they are such a small group and know each other so well. Whatever the reason, it is successful and I would love to learn how to replicate it.

At this point, most of our seniors know where they will be next year. They may have been accepted to a university or community college, and with those students, we were successful. This year we started the process of building a college-going culture and that is a long and arduous journey.  Next year, more students have selected honors, AP and community college classes than ever before and we will have the task of pulling them up to prepare them for those rigors. It will be tough, but I am already smiling because by simply making the choice to be there shows that they are beginning to think like college-bound students. If we can teach them to celebrate and support one another along the way, we can make them successful students, but more importantly, we will make them successful adults.