He Also Got the Presidential Gold Award.
Stolen from my weekly update to my family… but still quite relevant. It’s just me bragging about his awards, so no need to read it if you already know how proud I am.
I cannot ignore that Shane graduated from the 8th grade. His promotion ceremony was absolutely glorious for me, because they kept calling his name for awards!
Shane got the Honor Roll award, for being on honor roll every semester during middle school. That alone is sufficient. He also got an award for participating in student court (just lucky). AND he got an award for earning ALL of his Social Service Learning (volunteer) hours for high school graduation before the completion of 7th grade. (Yes, 7th.)
Shane also got the Scholastic Achievement Award in Physical Education, which literally made me cry. It sounds like “just a P.E. award” – but it’s not. Each subject had a handful of kids recognized, and we all kinda expected him to be recognized for his consistent 100% grades (at the end of many quarters) in English. Only three people in the whole grade got recognized for their P.E. efforts – and Shane really deserved it. He was very serious about his physical education efforts, always ran (fast) when doing the mile, and always did well with new sports. So I just couldn’t be any prouder of that ol’ P.E. award!
But then he also got the Presidential Gold Award for Academic Excellence. This is the award for the really great grades – a GPA of 3.5 or above every quarter for his entire middle school career. I couldn’t believe it when they called Shane.
I guess I should have known about all of that before graduation, but quite honestly – I had no clue. I knew Shane did well in school, but I didn’t realize how well until I saw the smattering of people who stood up as often as he did. (Most of that smattering are his closest friends.)
Okay – so this “brief” mention of his middle school successes might be overboard. But if you can’t brag to family, who can you brag to? Shane gets so little recognition. I am thrilled that, on this day, he was recognized.
And this from a child whose vision processing disorder once made him incapable of reading a full sentence. It’s a miracle.