Wantagh Eighth Graders Move Up To High School In Monday Ceremony

WANTAGH, NY — Graduation season is in full swing on Long Island, with high school seniors gearing up for the next chapter of their lives after high school. For Wantagh Middle School’s eighth graders, however, graduation season was a chance to look ahead to four years of high school, which they celebrated in a Monday ceremony.

For 197 members of the eighth grade class, Monday’s ceremony that began with “Pomp and Circumstance” and was soundtracked by raucous applause from their families and friends. Following the introductory procession, eighth grader Joseph Leone sang the national anthem before middle school president Anthony Ciuffo addressed the students, invoking the school’s mascot, the warriors.

“A Warrior understands that success is measured by how you respond to failure,” Ciuffo said. “Every successful person has experienced setbacks. Every athlete has lost a game. Every musician has made mistakes. Every scientist has faced failure. Everyone has been scared or worried about what’s to come at some point in their life. What separates those who achieve their goals from those who do not, is not avoiding difficulty, but their willingness to face it head on and rise after it.”

After Ciuffo, eighth graders Natalie Rissland, Vivian Heron, Sabrina Elmazi and Lucas Iacona took the stage to talk to their classmates about what middle school had meant to them. For some, it was a comfortable memory of seventh grade; for others, it was an opportunity to recall the challenges of starting sixth grade or the joy that came with signing their friends’ yearbooks.

For Iacona, however, the speech was a chance to look ahead.

“Upon completion of high school, everyone will take different paths to pursue their dreams,” Iacona said. “The uncertainty of what lies ahead is what makes this so powerful. We are standing ahead of a new journey that has the potential to shape the rest of our lives.”