Thank you, Mr. President!

Earlier this year, Reed said he wanted to earn the President's Award in school. We didn't know anything about it so we just asked him about it...he said he thought you had to have straight A's. As the school year was winding down, I'd periodically check in on the kids' grades, and I saw he was getting B's in Language Arts and Social Studies. I mentioned it to him and told him that while B's are a totally fine grade to get, (a) we know he can do better and (b) not bringing those grades up might mean he didn't make his goal of earning the President's Award. He kind of shrugged it off and we left it at that. I was disappointed for him because I thought it would be a shame to get straight A's all year and then let up at the very end and not make it (his teacher said she'd noticed him not making the same effort as earlier in the year).

Fast forward to three days left in the school year. As I walked Amy to school, Reed's teacher Mrs. Bedrowsky was waiting outside to talk to me. She asked if we were planning to be at the fifth grade promotion ceremony the next day, because Reed was going to get a "very prestigious award that not many people get". Well of course we were already planning to be there, so now we had a surprise to look forward to!

So that left us feeling very curious as we waited to find out what was up. We've never been to one of the fifth grade promotion ceremonies so we had no idea if there were a ton of awards available, and we thought he wasn't going to be eligible for the President's award. We didn't know if there was like a "science student of the year" or something like that. So we waited and wondered.

The promotion ceremony was very nice. They gave out two awards for music student of the year and two awards for art student of the year. Then came the President's Award. Honestly I wasn't even paying close attention as the assistant principal Mr. Murphy described what the kids had to do to earn the award. But then....they called Reed's name! WOW! He was one of only SIX kids in his class of 162 kids to earn the award. That puts him in the top 4% of his class. Wow! And Reed was just as surprised as we were, since we thought his last quarter grades were going to preclude him from getting the award.

The rest of the ceremony was great, one of the parents put together photos all the parents had submitted to them to show how the kids have grown over the last six years. Reed got a big laugh with his photos, and I loved seeing the picture of him and Harrison Lindsay from kindergarten - they were just so darn cute.

Kindergarten silly.

Fifth grade silly.

These two! So cute I can hardly stand it!

I had worried that I'd cry a lot at this ceremony, but honestly I ended up only happy, proud of what he's accomplished and filled with excitement for what's to come for him. I did cry, though, when I thought of how much my Mom would have loved to be here and seeing Reed and Amy grow up. I'm so sad for what the kids have missed out on not having her in their lives. But I know she's always with us.

After school, we took Reed to get a new bike as his promotion present - he's really outgrown the old one by a couple of inches (he's 5 foot 2 now!). Then we had dinner at Moe's (his choice) and frozen yogurt at Zinga's (also his choice). All in all a great day for him!

The next day I chatted with Mr. Murphy and asked about the award. He said it to earn the President's Award for Educational Excellence, you have to have a A average for both fourth and fifth grade, as well as scoring over 500 (out of 600) on certain SOLs. Because it was an average, those two B's in the last quarter averaged him out to a 3.75, which was still an A. So that explains that. And of course we hadn't received his SOL scores yet so we had no clue on that front. It turns out he got a perfect 600 on Math, 530 on Reading, perfect 600 on Science, and 582 on Writing. Again....wow. Looking back at his fourth grade SOLs, he got 538 on Math, a perfect 600 on Reading, and 587 on Virginia Studies - if I remember right, the Virginia Studies score factored in to the President's Award.

Mr. Murphy also explained that they'd raised the standards for the award this year, and that as they were going through the students' records, so many kids were dropping off - for example, earning 497s on their SOL and not making it - and ultimately it got down to just the six kids. Wow. From second-hand information, apparently in past years a quarter ore more of the class would earn the award. The best part of all this is that we don't push Reed - what he's achieved is all him. How terrific is that?!

So it was a really terrific surprise that Reed earned this award. We couldn't be more proud of him, and can't wait to see what middle school brings for him!