DMPS Welcomes 71 New Members to Class of 2015
DMPS welcome 71 new members to the Class of 2015 during the Summer Commencement Ceremony at Hoyt Sherman Place.
Last night the portrait of the DMPS Class of 2015 got its finishing touches when 71 summer graduates representing East, Hoover, North, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Scavo received their diplomas in a commencement ceremony at Hoyt Sherman Place. It was the district’s fifth annual summertime graduation celebration. All told now the DMPS Grads of Summer number more than 300, about the size of a regular spring graduating class at one of the district’s five comprehensive high schools. That equates to a lot of extra earning power for those graduates and a couple of points on the district graduation rate, too, contributing to the nine percent increase in the graduation rate at DMPS over the past six years.
Although the guests of honor came from all corners of the district they wore same-colored caps and gowns for their long-awaited event which was a scale version of the ones that happened in May, plus a few degrees of Fahrenheit in addition to the ones stacked on a table on the stage. There were school board dignitaries to seal the deal with handshakes and Superintendent Tom Ahart was on hand to pass out the hard-won diplomas.
“Seven years ago I started out with Des Moines Public Schools as the principal at Harding Middle School,” he told the graduates. “Some of you were 6th graders there at that time and I can’t tell you how proud I am to see you here tonight.” Educated guesses were that students who collected hugs from Dr. Ahart as well as diplomas when they crossed the stage were the ex-6th graders he was talking about.
Roosevelt principal Kevin Biggs was the keynote speaker and he commended the grads for “choosing contribution over complaint” when hurdles blocked their paths to graduation. “You are true examples of perseverance,” he said, to whoops and nods of agreement.
“Yes, we made it!” someone shouted from the ranks, an impromptu acclamation that said it all.
Social promotion is one of the buzz terms currently attached to the never-ending debate that swirls around public schools. It’s a euphemism for rewarding kids in the absence of achievement to avoid stigmatizing them and the system that failed them. Don’t tell last night’s batch of late-ripening grads or the teachers and staff that worked with them all summer that their diplomas don’t reflect effort and progress. They stayed after school from May until August and last night they got what they had coming to them.
Now it’s back to work on the classes of 2016 and beyond. After a brief intermission the 7th annual Graduation Walk on August 29th will scour the community to retrieve dropouts and students at risk of not graduating to bring them back into the fold. Scattered out there are some of the kids who will be decked out in caps and gowns next August at Hoyt Sherman Place, beaming and buzzing while a tune they may never have heard, Pomp and Circumstance, plays in their honor. They wouldn’t believe it now but they will by then.
