JOHN FINNEY STUDENTS `RISE' TO GRADUATE
Speakers hope that students 'have belief in themselves'
It wasn't a cold winter day in Boston, but Vallejo City Unified School District Superintendent William Spalding gave the same advice to John Finney High School graduates once given to a Harvard freshman named Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Persevere.
“This has been the hardest year of the hardest three years for students,” Spalding told the crowd and students Wednesday at Corbus Field. “These students had to persevere under so much and yet, here we are. You can credit that to stamina, resilience and tenacity. So give these students a round of applause as they probably had to work harder than any other student to get here.”
After Spalding finished his inspiring story about the 116th
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, he congratulated the 81 graduates.
Also speaking was Director of Student Support Services Edison Kelly, who urged the students
to “rise or else play in the ashes.” The school mascot is the phoenix, a bird associated with Greek mythology that cyclically regenerates, rises from the ashes or is otherwise born again.
“You need to have a belief in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, who will?” Kelly said. “You have to have expectations. Expect to go to college, expect to do what you want to do. You have to think like a grown person now. Do you have a bank account? Do you have a driver's license? When you look in the refrigerator, did you contribute to what is in it? What footprint are you going to put in this world? You have to rise and you have to rise above the drama and the haters.”
John Finney valedictorian Tashaya Williams, who will be serving in the U.S. Air Force once she turns 18, delivered a
speech to her classmates.
“For me, I can honestly say that there were some things that took me off the track,” Williams said. “There were things that led me to make bad decisions. I did not understand my need for impulse control that led to bad decisions. This led to suspensions and expulsions. What my experience taught me is that you are responsible for your actions and you have a choice to be where you want to be or you will continue to allow others to make those decisions for you. It took me a lot of years and a lot of tears to learn that life is much better if you learn to keep yourself accountable.
“We now have choices and opportunities and responsibilities that we have complete control of,” Williams continued. “I am so proud of all of us.”