SLO County welcomes back in-person graduations with ceremonies from Atascadero to Nipomo
One year after the Class of 2020 marked commencement with drive-through events and virtual ceremonies, five San Luis Obispo County high schools kicked off graduation season for the Class of 2021 by welcoming seniors and their families back to campus for joyous in-person festivities.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Atascadero High School, Central Coast New Tech High School in Nipomo, Lopez Continuation High School in Arroyo Grande and Coast Union High School and Leffingwell High School in Cambria saluted the accomplishments of 400-plus students who endured more than a year of distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
State and local health agencies required schools to limit how many guests could attend graduation ceremonies, and the celebrations were held with social distancing and face coverings.
But students were back together on football fields in scenes that seemed near impossible a few months ago.
Atascadero High School
Under blue skies on a warm afternoon, Atascadero High School celebrated the graduation of 240 seniors on Thursday at a ceremony in the school’s stadium.
The return to in-person commencement on the football field was a stark difference from the previous year, when members of the Class of 2020 celebrated graudation with a drive-through event in front of Atascadero City Hall.
“Our graduates have worked through the most difficult senior year that I’ve seen,” Principal Dan Andrus said. “Now, they are hungry to move forward and live life to the fullest.”
The valedictorian for the Class of 2021 is Aziz Bassil. The salutatorian is Sean Reagan.
This year’s Atascadero High graduates are off to a wide range of new endeavors, with 36 attending Cal Poly and 102 headed to Cuesta College. Another 26 are headed to other universities, including UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, Point Loma and Cal State Northridge.
A total of 57 graduating seniors received 139 scholarships worth just under $179,000 in all.
Additional graduates from the district’s ACE program also celebrated their commencement at the ceremony.
Central Coast New Tech High School
In Nipomo, 67 happy graduates received their diplomas in a ceremony Thursday at Central Coast New Tech High School.
“Every single class is the same thought — they endure a lot and become a close-knit family,” English teacher and graduation master of ceremonies Ryan James told The Tribune in a statement Thursday. “Our school focuses a lot on community and trust, and the kids weathered the storm. That has a lot to do with our culture, and what this class brought to the table as seniors.”
Co-valedectorians are Jayza Calderon, who’s headed to UCLA, and Kristiana Aguilar, who is one of six Central Coast New Tech grads attending Cal Poly next year.
A total of 22 students will be going on to four-year colleges, including Loyola Marymount, DePaul University and Oregon State University.
Another 39 will attend Cuesta College and Allan Hancock College, while three will enter the workforce and two will take a gap year. One student is joining the U.S. Marine Corps.
The Class of 2021 received $57,650 in scholarship money split among 22 students. They earned a total of 37 scholarships.
New Tech Associated Student Body president Darius Jones received both the Community Foundation of San Luis Obispo County’s Gary Paul Piantanida Scholarship of $12,000 and the Richard J. Weyhrich Leadership Award of $4,000.
Calderon received the Community Foundation of San Luis Obispo County’s Yinghsia Shih Li Memorial Scholarship of $10,000, and Aguilar received $7,000 in scholarships from a number of local organizations in the community.
“Class of 2021 will go down in history,” Principal Sarah Butler told The Tribune in a statement Thursday. “They’ve shown resilience and persevered. ... We wish them the best in their whole-hearted journey.”
Coast Union High School
Coast Union High School celebrated the accomplishments of 32 graduating seniors in a ceremony Thursday at the school’s football stadium in Cambria.
This year’s co-valedictorians for the Cambria school are Viviana Nunez and Jonathan Jewel.
Both “have worked hard,” Principal Scott Ferguson said, and “taken many challenging courses, along with multiple AP (advanced placement) courses. Vivi will be attending UC Berkeley, and Jonathan will be attending Cal Poly SLO, majoring in computer science.”
Ferguson said that salutatorian Jasmine Pena “will be going to Notre Dame in the fall, majoring in political science.”
School counselor Mary Stenbeck expanded on Pena’s success, noting that the young woman was awarded a Notre Dame LatinX scholarship, “a highly competitive scholarship and grant program awarded to only 3% of students. And it will pay for most of the tuition and fees for all four years.”
Other graduating Coast Union High students also are headed for top-flight universities and colleges, she noted.
Six students applied to Cal Poly and “all six were accepted,” she said, including Jewel. “Two were accepted to UC Berkeley, as well as UCLA.”
Brown University and Dartmouth College also accepted Coast Union students, “and another grad is on the waitlist for Georgia Tech,” Stenbeck said. “Needless to say, this is a highly competent, prepared senior class.”
Other universities that will soon have 2021 Coast Union High grads in their ranks include UC Berkeley, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Chico, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising and Arizona State University.
Stenbeck said that 16 students are going to Cuesta College. One grad will attend Allan Hancock College, one student will go to a diesel or welding school in Texas and another grad will work full time.
“Our foreign exchange student is going back to Germany to start at the university there,” Stenbeck said.
Scholarship donations to students at the school “broke records again,” Stenbeck reported, and additional gifts could still be added.
There were 18 applications for scholarships, and all who applied were awarded money totaling $115,900 as of May 20, Stenbeck said.
Lopez Continuation High School
Lopez Continuation High School in Arroyo Grande held its graduation ceremony at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The school celebrated 74 graduates, with some walking before they finish remaining credits over the summer.
Vianney Rodriguez Sepulveda is the school’s valedictorian, and Jewels Jones is the salutatorian.
Ten of the grads will attend Allan Hancock College in the fall, while another 12 will go to Cuesta College.
Four students received hefty scholarships, bringing the school’s total up to $14,000 total awarded to the grads.
Leffingwell High School
An outdoor commencement ceremony at Leffingwell High School was held Wednesday afternoon on the school’s Cambria campus and celebrated four graduating seniors.
As has been the case for the past three years, Principal Justin Gish said, “we’ve moved away from having a valedictorian or salutatorian. We’re honoring students less for their academic achievements and more for their leadership skills.”
Gish said that it has been “an extremely hard year, due to COVID.” Enrollment and graduation rates are down, he added, with only six students signed up at the start of the 2020-21 school year.
This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 7:52 PM.
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