For the first time this year, Corona del Sol graduation will include two student speakers who may or may not be valedictorian and salutatorian.
Changes to previous years’ graduation tradition will be implemented for this year’s graduating seniors. This allowed any student ranking in the top 5 percent of the class to apply for “academic speaker” at the graduation ceremony, said Renee Howard, Corona del Sol High School site council member.
Students with a 2.5 grade-point average or higher were able to apply for the speaker position.
“All of those students (in the top five percent of their class) exhibit valedictorian characteristics,” Howard said.
“So we wanted to give those students an equal opportunity to speak at graduation.”
In past years, Corona speakers were solely valedictorian and salutatorian students, a tradition shared with most other local high schools.
“Corona is the only high school to do this (allow applicants for speaker positions),” Howard said. “It was an effort to give the opportunity to those who have a strong desire to speak at graduation.”
Both positions require that students have no “off-campus suspensions” during their high school career, as well as no “major” disciplinary or academic referrals, as outlined in the student handbook, Howard said.
Selected students who applied for speaking positions will write speeches at a “writing day” exercise on Saturday, Feb. 19, during one of three separate writing sessions. Potential candidates were required to submit a screening application. Students ranked one and two in their class will be automatically submitted in the application process.
Interested students can contact Justine Centanni at 480-752-8818 or Renee Howard at 480-783-3341 for additional information.
