Three classrooms of future middle schoolers were promoted from Laurel Elementary School on Tuesday, June 16. An enthusiastic crowd of family and friends who filled the school's cafeteria were further energized with a surprise appearance and brief rally by State Sen. James Rosapepe (Dist. 21) who, by a show of hands and cheers, counted the number of parents, extended family members and friends among the crowd. He stressed the importance of community in making education work for our future leaders.

Laurel City Council President Gayle Snyder provided the keynote address, in which she discussed community involvement and the possibilities of where the students could go as they pursue further education and careers.

Alan Simkin, a sixth grade math teacher, brought home how emotional this transition is for the teachers as well as students.

"This is always a very emotional time of year for me," he told the crowd. "My wife always sees it coming. For a year these are my kids, and then I see them go off to junior high school and hope that they will come back to visit."

Cheers and cameras were the order of the day throughout the ceremony and afterward in the halls and sixth-grade pod. Then the students were whisked to a Spirit Cruise in Baltimore, where they enjoyed a rich variety of food, music and a dance-off.

Graduate Shea Adela Schmidt remarked afterward, "we were alive; the people working on the boat said that we were alive."
--Justine Faulkenburg

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