AMESBURY — Ten seniors graduated from the Academy of Strategic Learning Sunday in a ceremony that celebrated the accomplishments of the class and the obstacles each overcame to reach graduation day.
"It was beautiful," senior class adviser Bethany Noseworthy said yesterday. "They're pretty exceptional kids."
It was the sixth graduating class for the Amesbury charter school. In all, 45 students have graduated in the past six years. The Class of 2008 was the second-biggest class.
The Class of 2008 includes Ryan Hawkes, valedictorian Matthew Gingras, Charles Frascone, Shawn Durgin, Michael Harkness, salutatorian Shawn Roy, Stephen Reslewic, Sarah Richmond, Shaquana Jackson and Sarah Witteman.
Eight of the 10 students will be continuing their education. Many will attend Northern Essex Community College, one will attend the University of New Hampshire and another is planning to attend Southern Maine Community College.
The academy, a Horace Mann charter school, serves grades seven to 12.
Gingras, who had attended the academy since seventh grade, spoke about the impact the school had on him and how the staff helped him make it to where he is now.
"To keep going takes an exceptional person, and for us to be sitting here today proves that," Gingras said. "While this is the end for us in high school, it's the start of so many more things. Some of us will go to college, others work. There's so much more for us to do, our world is just beginning. The biggest lesson I have learned at the academy in six years is nothing academic. It's to be the best person I can be, and to be everything that I can be, to do everything I know I can do."
Gingras will attend the University of New Hampshire in the fall and plans to study journalism. Noseworthy called Gingras a "gifted writer."
"I'm really looking forward to seeing what he does there," she said.
Roy, the salutatorian, related how the school helped him discover who he was and told about how his classmates have changed through the years. He will attend Northern Essex Community College to study computer technology.
In her closing address to the students and their families, Noseworthy spoke about the many obstacles and adversities the group has faced.
She quoted a passage by Sonny Carroll called "The Awakening."
"A time comes in your life when you finally get it ... when in the midst of all of your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere, the voice inside your head cries out — ENOUGH!," she read. "Enough fighting and crying, or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes you begin to look at the world through new eyes. ... This is your awakening."
Also addressing the graduates during the ceremony at Town Hall were: Principal Donna Georges, Superintendent of Schools Charles Chaurette, and Nora Sheraton, the president of the Board of Trustees.
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