Fountain Hills HS Class of 2010

The Fountain Hills High School "Class of 2010" completed Commencement ceremonies on Friday, May 28th at Fountain Hills Park. As with all of our graduating classes, they exemplified how an individual and a group of young students can achieve and build their future within a public school system.

With students born in 32 states, this class had 15 students graduate with a "Diploma of Highest Distinction" (3.75 GPA with at least 5 Advance Placement courses in 3 content areas) and 32 graduate with a "Diploma with Honors" (3.5 GPA with a minimum of 5 AP courses) among its 176 graduates. They received scholarship offers for over $3 million dollars to attend University of California Berkeley, the 3 Arizona University Honors Colleges, Missouri, Purdue, Notre Dame, Boston College, West Virginia, and Azusa Pacific to name just a few destinations. A combined 64 will attend Arizona State University, University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University next school year.

On Monday, May 31st, I attended the Fountain Hills annual Memorial Day Ceremony held at the Veterans Memorial Park. The keynote speaker, Carlos Hadaway, spoke to the need for Patriotism to be found in our country and schools. In our FHUSD school system, the U.S. Constitution booklet is provided for our middle school 7th and 8th graders as part of their U.S. History curriculum. Our McDowell Mountain ES annually invites veterans to speak at Veteran's Day Assemblies having the Joe Foss Veterans' group and Scottsdale City Councilman Robert Littlefield speak over the past two years on the importance for patriotism. The Constitution and our government is further reinforced in our junior mandated U.S. History course and again as a senior graduation requirement in the semester Government course. All students daily start the school day with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Public schools are one of the best examples on why our country will never lose their want or need for patriotism. For they serve and strengthen each other as they educate and honor all students that choose to live for the American Dream. A dream that has no boundaries, no barriers and offers hope for the future seen daily in America's public schools.