Haverhill Superintendent Credits Higher Retention with Tonight’s Large Graduation Class

Haverhill High School holds one of its largest graduation ceremonies ever tonight at Trinity Haverhill Stadium.The in-person event, which begins at 6 p.m., still faces COVID-19 restrictions. Superintendent Margaret Marotta said each student is allowed to have up to six guests, and they must pre-register. In addition, there will be social distancing between groups, to the extent possible, and masks are preferred.“I’d just like to say how proud we are of our seniors for what they have done. We have so many kids that have graduated. We’ve actually got not only Haverhill High School graduates, Greenleaf Academy, which is one of our smaller schools, is graduating a group of kids. Gateway Academy, which is our alternative high school, this will be their first graduating class, and they will be graduating eight of their 10 seniors, which is really great for an alternative high school. I’m just really proud of all the work the kids and teachers have done this year,” the superintendent said.Marotta, a guest this week on WHAV’s morning program, said this year’s graduating class has almost 100 more students than in recent years thanks to an increased retention rate. Many of them are heading off to continue their educations with an eye toward potential student loans.“What we are actually seeing this year is a big increase in the number of kids going to two year colleges versus kids going to work. We think that’s really positive. Many of those students want to go beyond that and go to four-year college but they want to get that community college degree at a reasonable price first.”The last day of school for the Haverhill School District is Friday, June 18.Support the show