Asbury Park Seniors receive Scholarships and Awards
District to be honored as Nationally Recognized Model School
At Thursday night’s annual senior awards reception close to 50 state county and local organizations gathered to distribute scholarships and recognitions to close to 40 graduating Asbury Park High School students.
Each branch of the military, fraternity and sorority organizations, the NJSIAA, NJ Natural Gas, local Elks and Rotary Clubs, and the Asbury Park Homeowner’s Association distributed thousands of dollars to support the students’ continuing education.
“We spend one half of our yearly budget on the scholarships,” said Homeowner’s Association’s John Fredricksen.
Brookdale Community College’s Panhellenic Council member Fidel Wilson said they for the first time opened the Minority Male Initiative Conference to high school students this year.
“Asbury park was the best responder,” he said.
As each organization spoke of why they chose a particular student as its award recipient, it became clear that these students are juggling their studies with community service, participation in clubs and organizations, as well as after school jobs.
There’s class president Alisha McKnight, who graduates in the top 10 percent of her class while mentoring through the Big Brother Big Sister program and participating in the State Stars program; and Jose Sanchez, who excelled [within months] in the high school ESL program and as a member of the soccer team, while juggling two afterschool jobs, one in Deal and the other in Bradley Beach. Sanchez, who plays the guitar, hopes to study auto mechanics at Brookdale, while McKnight plans to study nursing, also at Brookdale.
McKnight’s accolades Thursday included: a Marine Corps Distinguished athlete award, and Certifications of Excellence from the local Women’s Club, Homeowner’s Association, NJ Natural Gas, as well as recognitions from the high school’s business and math departments, and the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame.
Valedictorian Rose Avina received certifications of excellence from the math, art, business, social studies and English departments, as well as the Rotary Club, Dr. Sudhakar Kharod, Alumini Hall of Fame, and James and E. Daley Cutler scholarships.
The recognitions come on the cusp of the district’s own accolade as a Model School by the International Center for Leadership in Education. The award will be given during the 24th Annual Model Schools Conference, held June 26th-29th in Orlando, Florida, where Superintendent Lamont Repollet will be a featured speaker.
“Asbury Park has historically had some of the lowest literacy rates in New Jersy, rates that were dropping every year; struggling students in grades 3-12 were achieving only 0.5 years of growth in reading per school year,” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Meghan Kelly Daly said in a written statement. “Now, however, the results are different; 44% of students in grades 3-12 exceeded one year’s reading growth in a single semester, as a result of the implementation of reading intervention programs, 23% exceeded two years’ growth in a single semester, and the percent of students failing three of more courses has fallen from 30% to 3%.”
Below is a full list of the educational award and scholarship recipients:
Rose Avina Adirah Barksdale Woodjerry Cetoute Amirah Davis
Tyquere Davis Emmanuel Diaz Lopez Jahmel Dixon Zhane Esdaile
Joseph Famularo Clevy Felix Gamal Ganthier Quwaamiir Harmon
Sharif James Marie Ketlene Jean Rose Johnson Jaida King
Adonis Linares Diana Massa Casey McGinnis Alisha McKnight
Luis Mejia-Reyes Dessiah Moore Kevin Oakley Shavonna Pearsall
Jovaun Richards Da’Shaun Sample Genesis Sanchez Jose Sanchez
Michael Sanchez Charles Sanders Abigail Soriano Jaedon Stephens
Ayanna Tulley Jay’Saan White Keith White Amaris Williams
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