Trinity Classical Academy graduated 30 students at an intimate commencement ceremony on Friday.
Due to the size of the class, the commencement was able to highlight each individual student’s accomplishments, future plans, and personal messages upon conferring their diplomas.
Trinity classical academy is a TK-12 academy that hosts five schools – a TK-6th grade grammar school, a 7th and 8th grade logic school, a 9th-12th grades school of rhetoric, and learning disabilities and independent schools.
The ceremony began with a choir prelude of “Amazing Grace” before transitioning into “Pomp and Circumstance” and the invocation address by Principal Liz Caddow.
“This class has proceeded over many years to become young men and women of virtue, wisdom, purpose and courage,” said Caddow. “They have searched their souls deeply, looking upward to be reminded of the good. As a class, they are scholars, musicians, artists, actors or orators, athletes… They have pursued excellence by staying the course and doing hard things. Growing in courage, humility, humor, graciousness and… quiet courage.”
The invocation was followed by the salutatory address by Amy Dever. Dever earned a 4.8 GPA during her time at Trinity, which she said was difficult but done with the support of her peers, family, and teachers.
“We did get discouraged sometimes. But we always knew there was something to look forward to, even if that thing was just surviving until graduation,” said Dever. “As the year began drawing to a close, we reminisced more and more with laughter and memories… Today is the day we hope to set the stage showing our endless gratitude to the people in this audience and people on this stage and to God, who’s always with us.”
Following Dever’s speech and a hymn, Danielle Quayyum delivered her valedictory address in which she took the time to acknowledge the perseverance of her class during the pandemic years.
“We countered our loss of motivation, with encouragement towards optimism and diligence,” said Quayyum. “We began to harden one another… with long inspirational texts that have lifted us to embrace the suffering and enjoy our last few months of high school together.”
Caddow said after the ceremony that Trinity was one of the few schools to continue in-person learning during the pandemic. She said that although it was done with the required restrictions, having students in-person was critical to their education.
“We remained open during the pandemic, in service to our students and the learning they deserved,” said Caddow. “We did it safely with all kinds of safety measures. But yeah, we so we are grateful though tonight to be celebrating our 11th commencement and our class of 30. And just just proud of our students and [the] privilege to serve them.”
As each diploma was conferred, administrators were able to take a minute to detail the personality and highlights of each student’s time at Trinity. After the conferring of degrees, the class of 2022 presented a gift to the academy and closed the ceremony with hymns and prayers.
According to Trinity’s website, 100% of its students are accepted to a four-year university after graduation.
