Hundreds of graduating high school seniors gathered at Champions Square Friday morning to celebrate their academic success. Officials at the second annual Senior Shout Out hailed the graduation rate of 73 percent – up from 54 percent 10 years ago.
It took about 18 minutes for seniors from public high schools in New Orleans to announce their school, and the colleges selected by their classmates.
The Orleans Parish School Board and Recovery School District report college enrollment for graduates increased from 34 percent in 2004 to 59 percent last year.
Brianna Thurman is graduating from Edna Karr High School, and will be attending Wesleyan University in Connecticut this fall to study politics and pre-veterinarian courses. She can’t decide between the two yet, but she always knew she’d go to college.
“I just had to push through and do long scholarship applications," she said, "because I knew that eventually I was going somewhere and it was going to pay off.”
Rayonne Coleman is graduating from Sophie B. Wright, and will be studying pre-med at Xavier University.
“I want to be an obstetrician gynecologist," she said. "And when I was younger I used watched TLC a lot, so I just like the way, you know, I love babies and I love the human body.”
Students at today’s event earned more than $70 million in scholarships.
