Maritime and Science Technology Academy Honors Class of 2020

MIAMI, FL — Miami-Dade County Public Schools and Maritime and Science Technology Academy are honoring the Class of 2020 to coincide with the school's virtual graduation on June 12.

The school is highlighting two students below who represent the achievements of the entire graduating class.

Pedro Dal Bo

Pedro Dal Bo is a Silver Knight nominee who is at the top 5% of his graduating class thanks to a 5.5 weighted GPA. Not bad for a student who had to skip a grade in middle school and had to play catch up. Pedro is also a Sunshine State Scholar for 2019, a distinction that is awarded to Florida’s top caliber STEM students. No wonder he was Captain of the Robotics Club.

As an athlete, he is the Captain of the Varsity Water Polo team.

Pedro has been awarded $371,000 in scholarship money from various universities and he is currently accepted at Georgia Tech, Northwestern University, Rice College, Northeastern, University of Florida, University of Miami, and Florida International University.

Charles McCutcheon

Charles McCutcheon volunteers teaching Japanese language and math at Miami Hoshuko, a nonprofit Saturday school sponsored by the Japanese Consulate. In fact, he is a Silver Knight nominee for World Languages. He is also the Vice President of the National Association of Students Against Gun Violence, a founding member of the Junior State of America MAST Chapter and Choir Member of Miami Children’s Chorus. He is also a two-time winner of the UC Berkeley Book Award Best Speaker in JSA Debate and a finalist in the Theodore Gibson Oratorical Competition.

Charles is pursuing degrees in Linguistics and Chemistry. In addition, he is Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level N1 Certified, which is a graduate-school level test. He has been accepted into Columbia, Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth. Charles will be attending Brown this fall.

In an effort to ensure that the Class of 2020 graduates at Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) receive the pomp and circumstance they deserve, the District is holding virtual graduation ceremonies for each high school. The live streaming of each virtual graduation, as well as a schedule of ceremonies and a video archive can be accessed by visiting Classof2020.dadeschools.net. The ceremonies are also televised on WLRN Channel 17.

The virtual commencement ceremonies will be followed by an in-person Class of 2020 celebration at each high school either in the summer or winter, once it is safe to do so under public health guidelines.

In addition to the virtual ceremonies, the District has launched a marketing campaign to highlight outstanding seniors, and invite the community to celebrate graduates on social media using the following hashtags: #MDCPSGrad, #Classof2020, #MeetMDCPSGrads and #SeniorSpotlight.