St. Michael's to graduate first eighth-grade class

Milestone comes a year ahead of schedule for school opened in 2007

BY KEVIN BIRNBAUM

Andrea Villalva, left, and Lindsey Hoskings make up the first graduating class for St. Michael School in Snohomish, which opened in 2007. Photo courtesy St. Michael School

Before this school year, St. Michael School wasn't expected to have its first graduating class until next year.

It's a little complicated.

The school opened in 2007 with about 15 students from preschool through third grade. Those pioneering third-graders are now finishing up seventh grade. But the school will graduate its first class of eighth-graders — two students — this June.

This somewhat unusual state of affairs started in 2010, when Lindsey Hoskings wrote a letter to St. Michael's pastor, Father Jay DeFolco, explaining why she wanted to attend a Catholic school and applying for a scholarship. Lindsey should have been starting seventh grade in the fall of 2010, but the school didn't have one, so she stayed back as a sixth-grader.

But when Andrea Villalva, a rising eighth-grader, applied to St. Michael's last year with her two younger brothers, the school decided to make Lindsey and Andrea the school's first eighth-grade class.

Leaving a legacy
The school has grown in the last five years, to 61 students from kindergarten through eighth grade, said principal Dr. Karen Matthews, but grade levels are still combined, and Lindsey and Andrea have studied with the seventh-graders this year.

"They've worked very well in integrating with the seventh grade even though they're eighth grade," said Matthews. "They both take good leadership roles."

Lindsey and Andrea have been working with Matthews to plan the school's first graduation ceremony, which will be combined with the annual all-school baccalaureate Mass on June 11.

"We've been working on what some of the rituals are going to be and the legacy that they want to leave, so we've been working on building the culture for the school," said Matthews.

The two graduates will each give a speech on the theme they picked for the event, "Memories Are Forever."

"And then the seventh-graders are going to have a little brunch for them afterwards and then we'll have a little program where each grade will give them some kind of a little going-away gift," said Matthews.

Lindsey will be going on to Archbishop Murphy High School in Everett in the fall, and Andrea will be going to a public high school.

Matthews said St. Michael recently took a hit in enrollment, losing several families to the bad economy a couple years ago, but is now "bouncing back."

The school has five seventh-graders on track to graduate next year, she said, and "our fifth grade is going to be 11 children, so the bottom part of the school is what's building."

"We're just being discovered," she added.

May 10, 2012