Top of their Class... Meet Calhoun H.S. Valedictorian & Salutatorian

Top Of Their Class... Meet Calhoun High School Valedictorian and Salutatorian

Valedictorian Tina Cheng

Tina will graduate from Calhoun High School with a 101.96 GPA, and her humble demeanor and thirst for knowledge will be difficult to replace. One of Tina’s most admirable traits is her completely independent nature. She isn’t the student who is constantly checking her grades, fighting the teacher for the extra point, with the “goal” of becoming Valedictorian. Her parents let her navigate high school on her own, and don’t micro -manage her schedule or classes. Anything Tina has earned throughout high school, has completely been done by her.

Art plays an influential role in Tina’s life. Her interests emerged around 5th grade, when a group of students were given the opportunity to create pieces of art during their lunch period and eventually get their art portfolio graduated. The judge gave Tina a perfect score.

When Tina told this story, she said that looking back on those pieces, she can confidently say that she has improved quite a bit, but it is gratifying to look back at that experience and see how it affirmed her love for art. She feels that expressing herself through art is vastly different from the sciences and math; it grants her the freedom to do whatever she wants, but still requires intense focus. Although it can be “messy”, the final product makes it all worth it. In addition to Tina’s interest in art and research, Tina is on the tennis team,and is a member of the National, World Language, Science and Math Honor Societies.

Other accolades include Tina’s ACT score of 35, her ability to understand the Chinese dialect of Fujionese, which her parents speak, her interest in science research and her independent nature.

Next year, Tina will be attending Cornell University.

Salutatorian Kaitlin Bondi

Kaitlin Bondi is a student who has surpassed even the highest expectations of the typical high school student’s experience. Kindness, integrity, empathy, brilliance, confidence and leadership are just a few adjectives to describe her and how she is seen by everyone not only within our school and district but our community. She has created a path for herself that has led to success in every realm, excelling academically and as an athlete, a science researcher, and a committed advocate to service within the school and community, serving as a student leader in many facets, a friend to many, a mentor, and a role model to all.

Kaitlin is an explorer of knowledge and ideas, an academic risk taker. She has pursued the most rigorous academic program available and has demonstrated mastery of every course she has taken. She has an insatiable drive to learn, and has been rewarded for her efforts by being recognized as an AP Scholar with Distinction! She has been inducted into all of the school academic honor societies. For the past two summers Kaitlin has forged a partnership and has interned at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Partners for the Future Program under the mentorship of Dr. Kim Hyun Soo and at the NYU Langone Fink Lab, where she worked on a study of gathering normative language and data through semantic tasks to aid in brain mapping. Kaitlin is very active within her community and spends countless hours volunteering. Her activism and relentless support of others also take shape on the Volleyball and Badminton Courts. She served as the Volleyball Varsity Captain and is a News12 Scholar Athlete and Section 8 Scholar Athlete recipient.

Kaitlin is the whole package, fearless, intuitive, driven and a true leader She will be pursuing her degree in Health Science at Northeastern University in the Fall.