Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
School faded as a priority when Simone Smith was a senior at Lincoln High, after her beloved grandmother died.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have no one telling me to get up, go to class, so I missed a lot of school,\u201d said Smith, 18.<\/p>\n
Her grades slipped, and she narrowly missed graduating with her class in June. But that near-miss galvanized her. <\/p>\n
Summer school \u201cwas easy\u201d once she buckled down, Smith said \u2014 she completed social science and English requirements, and on Thursday, she collected her hard-won diploma, one of nearly 400 Philadelphia School District students who crossed the stage at summer graduation after earning a handful of credits in summer school. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis graduation was delayed, but not denied,\u201d author, actor, and poet Jaylene Clark Owens told a packed auditorium at the Met on North Broad Street.<\/p>\n
Smith, who wore a custom-made stole honoring her grandmother and will now enroll and play Division I basketball at Georgia Southern University, was thrilled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels great to be able to do this,\u201d she said. \u201cMe and my sister are the only ones that got our high school diplomas \u2014 my family has a lot of dropouts. But I wanted to do it for my Nana.\u201d<\/p>\n
The graduation was a boisterous scene of joy and celebration: young people in an array of caps and gowns representing schools from all over the district, some in T-shirts and shorts under their robes, some in party dresses. Families wept, cheered, shouted: \u201cYou did that!\u201d There was a steady drumbeat of applause, a sea of flowers and camera flashes, the arms of bursting-with-pride-parents reaching out to touch passing graduates.<\/p>\n
A beaming school board president Reginald Streater said Thursday\u2019s graduation was no less significant or important than the ceremonies that happened in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou took ownership of your future,\u201d Streater said. \u201cThere is never just one path to success. We believe in you, and we can\u2019t wait to see all that you accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min School faded as a priority when Simone Smith was a senior at Lincoln…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,107351],"class_list":["post-251140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philadelphia-summer-school-delayed-graduation-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}