Earning gold status at Lawrence Middle School

At Lawrence Middle School, 75 students have earned a spot on the school’s highest honor roll list for the third marking period, achieving what the school calls Gold Status; students who earned an overall average of 95 or above for all of their subjects.
The sixth grade led the way with 27 such honorees, 19 in the eighth grade, 17 seventh-graders and 14 in fifth grade. An Honor Roll Breakfast was held to recognize the students in the school’s cafeteria on March 12.
Christine Moore, the middle school’s assistant principal, assisted in planning the breakfast. “Mr. Perry, our building principal, started the Honor Roll Breakfast last year at LMS, so this will be our second year,” Moore said. “The students are very excited.”
Students take classes relative to their grade levels, and the eighth-graders are eligible to take upper-level courses like Integrated Algebra and Living Environment (Biology). Amanda Romero, an eighth grade Gold Status, listed biology as her favorite class. “It’s so different from my other classes,” Romero said. “I’m learning a lot more about an advanced subject. Learning about the human body has been my favorite so far.”
Haisha Famuyide, another eighth-grader, said that her favorite class is social studies. “I enjoy learning about U.S. history the most,” Famuyide said. “I love learning about all different topics in American History and have so many favorites. It’s hard to choose just one.”
Adam Berlin is Famuyide’s American History teacher, where the curriculum begins with the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, and runs through 2014. “Haisha is a very bright, motivated student and a delightful young lady,” Berlin said. “Her dedication to her coursework is truly admirable. An assignment she did that stands out is a political cartoon she drew of the Pullman Strike. It wasn’t one of the ‘easy’ choices; actually, I think she was the only student to pick that topic. The result was both creative and informative and it was obvious that she put a lot of effort into completing it.”
“I want to see everyone back here at the end of the year, at the next breakfast,” Perry said to the students. “You know what it takes to be here.”