The Payoff

On Weds, I think it was, they had what they call the "College Assembly", a yearly tradition at Eastside.

Once again (like every year in the school's history), every single graduating senior got into at least one four-year college, and will be attending in the fall.

One of the teachers made a PowerPoint presentation from all this. There's a little piece on each school where an Eastside graduate will be going. They announce the school and the seniors who will be going there come out on stage, all decked out in college gear (sweatshirts and hats) and holding signs and posters for the school, cheering and pumping their fists and all. They give some interesting facts on the school (year of founding, size, famous alumni), and the number of past Eastside graduates who went to or are still enrolled at that school.

And the all the rest of the school, freshmen through juniors, along with the teachers, are in the audience cheering like crazy.

It was so, so, so cool. Definitely made me tear up. I think about how hard all the kids in my class work, the 9 hour school days, the late work, etc. All paying off in this huge, tremendous victory. These kids are going to college, the first in their family.

And we are talking some great schools, too. Barnard, Pomona, Occidental, UCLA, and *3* going to Stanford. That last one blew me away. In a graduating class of 40 students, from the poorest neighborhoods in the Bay Area, we are sending *3* kids to Stanford.

They ended with all the seniors onstage, and then they announced the amount of financial aid they got, all told. I forgot that number but it was a *lot*. For most of these kids college is out of the question without some financial aid, and Eastside has the financial-aid-getting game down to a science.

It was very moving for me, and I don't really know the kids who were graduating. I saw their faces all year but never had them in my classes. I can only imagine if they were kids I had been teaching for the past 4 year, or in some cases 6 (those who came through the middle school). I would be crying like a little girl (sorry little girls, first analogy that came to mind).

I am *really* going to miss this place.