Congratulations High School Graduates!

by jill

Graduation ceremonies for Alameda and Encinal High School were last week and by the look of the graduating classes, the future looks very bright.

For example, Alameda High School 2011 graduate Valerie Fong was just selected as one of two CIF/Farmers Scholar-Athletes of the Year. This is a scholarship award that identifies student-athletes who excel in the classroom, athletics, and make strong contributions to their schools and communities. Only one female and one male are selected each year from the 1,500-plus CIF schools statewide, both public and private. (California Interscholastic Federation is the governing body for high school sports in California)

Valerie was a four-year volleyball player at Alameda who took her passion for sports and leveraged it to help her community, such as by organizing a sanctioned charity volleyball tournament to generate funds for the George Mark Children’s Hospice and Respite Care. (GMCH). She also volunteers at GMCH and Kaiser Hospital in Oakland. Valerie boasts a 4.6 GPA, is a National Merit Scholarship recipient and a College Board Advance Placement Scholar. She’ll attend UCLA in the fall to study Microbiology and Immunology.

Not to be outdone, Encinal High School graduate Eunice Lam is the recipient of two full college scholarships: the Gates Millennium Scholarship and the Cal Incentive Awards Program. The Gates Millennium Scholarship is given to only 1,000 students nationwide, from a pool of 23,000 applicants. Lam, a native of Hong Kong, credits the diversity at Encinal High School for encouraging her to “define myself and to get out there and do more, get involved in more activities.” Inspired by an Encinal teacher, Lam, who will be attending Cal Berkeley, is considering a career in teaching in order to “give back to the next generation and develop students and their future.”

These are two outstanding examples of the quality of education in Alameda’s public schools. In fact, both Alameda and Encinal rank in the top 4% in the Washington Post’s national High School challenge, which measures the number of AP exams administered divided by the number of high school seniors. Of 23,000 schools nationwide, Alameda came in at #578 (top 2%) and Encinal at #994 (top 4%).

In addition to UCLA and Cal, AUSD graduates are attending UC Davis, UC San Diego, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, Fisk, Georgetown, and Wellesley among many, many others. Many are receiving scholarships as well. While many scholarships are still in the process of being awarded, to date figures for Encinal and Alameda seniors have received over $1.5 million in scholarships for college.

And it’s not just our high schools that are achieving. In April, Lincoln Middle School was named a 2011 California Distinguished School based on its high academic performance, sustained growth, and significant progress closing the achievement gap.

Congratulations to our Seniors! And congratulations to all our schools for supporting student success!