Roxbury Prep Seniors Announce Colleges, Hear from DA Rollins

Senior Signing Day at Roxbury Prep is usually a raucous affair at a theater with hundreds of kids and families as each student declares loudly where they are going to college.

A lot has changed in a year. Not only did the coronavirus force senior signing day to go online, but students celebrated their college declarations against a backdrop of a nation reckoning with the effects of police brutality in communities of color.

Roxbury Prep’s Upper High School Principal Titciana Barros opened the ceremony acknowledging the “shared outrage” caused by racism but reminded the students, “we love you, we hear you and we stand with you.”

Staffers presented core value awards to seniors who most exemplified traits such as leading through action and embracing wonder. Students announced their plans to graduate in four years from places like Brown University, Georgetown, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Morehouse, Holy Cross, Spelman, Wesleyan and dozens of other schools.

Students also heard advice from District Attorney Rachael Rollins, who made a special appearance at the Signing Day celebration online.

As seniors go off to college and then to other future endeavors, she told them to not be afraid to make mistakes because “that is how you learn and change only happens when you are uncomfortable.” She said to pay no mind to names they might be called when they push for change in their world. “I’ve been called pushy, bossy, aggressive and other words I don’t want to say in public.”

But she said she is unapologetic about being those things because she is pushing for change from a system that has resisted it for far too long. “Please call me pushy. I push for policies that I know will make a difference in the lives of the communities I serve.”

Rollins, Massachusetts’ first woman of color to serve as a D.A. and the first woman to hold the office in Suffolk County, told the seniors: “If they do not offer you a seat at the table, pull up a chair and make a space for yourself.”

Roxbury Prep’s mission is to ensure students get into, succeed in and graduate from college.
The Class of 2020 is headed to college well prepared. Nearly all of them took one or more Advanced Placement classes before senior year.

Last year, 62% of seniors passed at least one AP exam, which means they headed into college with college credits. By comparison, across the U.S., only 39% of public school students take any AP exams during high school and 24% actually pass an exam prior to graduating.