Abigail Melendez waited for her brother Jonathan Cruz after the ceremony, basket in hand. Sonya Bethea filmed school principal Jennifer Jenkins’ performance of the national anthem. As a New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) security guard, Sonya Bethea got close-up access to her granddaughter’ s graduation from Betsy Ross Arts and Design Academy on Tuesday morning.  Bethea stood at the front of the Ralph Walker Skating Rink at 1080 State St. as the eighth graders proceeded to their seats. She looked out for her granddaughter Tatum Cannon. Tatum specialized in dance at BRADA, so Bethea attended many of her dance shows, which she loved. “They’re better than Co-op,” she said.  BRADA — an arts magnet school in the Hill — graduated 89 eighth graders on Tuesday morning. About half are headed to 9th grade at the same school, after BRADA began its transition last year from a 5-8th grade middle school to a 7-12th grade high school. The rest of the students are headed to other local high schools, including Career High School and Metropolitan Business Academy. BRADA’s eighth graders on Tuesday each graduated with an arts “emphasis”: they had the choice in middle school to specialize in visual art, dance, music, theater, and various digital arts as well, according to teacher Christi Sargent. For dancers, that emphasis meant performing in a showcase at the end of the year, and for musicians, a concert. “Every art had a little something, next year we’re hoping it’ll be bigger.”  Tuesday’s keynote speaker was New Haven’s inaugural poet laureate, Sharmont “Influence” Little. He prompted students to think about “practice,” focusing on art and intellect as themes for his speech. “The first part of being great is practice,” he told the eighth graders, asking them to raise their hands if they liked to practice. A few did — he encouraged them all to embrace it. Although BRADA will have both ninth and tenth grades next year, the school will continue to hold eighth-grade graduations, Sargent said. “We’ll have and eighth and a twelfth when we make it up to twelfth grade,” she said, referring to the end-of-year ceremonies. Sargent taught at Cooperative Arts Humanities High School before moving to BRADA this year. “The ninth graders at a high school, they seem so tiny. And here, I was like, ‘wow, these kids are huge,’” especially next to sixth graders.   “It was a little bit of a challenge this year, it being the first year, trying to help them feel like they were in high school,” even though they were the oldest class there, Principal Jennifer Jenkins said of the school’s new ninth-grade class. To help with that, Jenkins said they went on trips with other high schools; BRADA plans to continue “collaboration” with other high schools across the district.  Eighth-grade math teacher Sean Laydon also started at BRADA this year. He joined the school because the only requirement was a middle school teaching certification, not high school — the district transition “allows me with a middle school certification to teach in a high school setting, which I had never been able to do before,” he said. “Math is the hardest spot to fill,” he said, especially for eighth grade.  As the school goes through changes, adding teachers and grades, they had another occasion to celebrate on Tuesday: beloved dance teacher Nikki Claxton has now completed her 30th year at the school. In one year with Claxton, “I learned so much more about education, just working with her,” Sargent said. “She has a lot of energy and a lot of love.” Sargent said her motto is “lead with love.” “I think that’s the best thing you can do for middle schoolers is just love on them.” Security guard and grandmother Bethea as well as the speaker Little both said that dance shows at BRADA never disappoint. “You can actually tell the impact she’s had on the school and the students just by the smiles and the passion,” Little said about Claxton. “I’ve never seen her kids put on a bad show or not be prepared.”  Jenkins, who has known Claxton since they both attended Hillhouse High School, said she is grateful her friend has stayed at Betsy Ross for so many years. Her talent could take her anywhere in the world, Jenkins said. “She has set a standard and she’s very consistent.”  Eighth grader Ryleigh Bivens, who specialized in theater at BRADA, praised her dance teacher too. “She always saw something in us,” Bivens said with a smile.  Class valedictorian Kayleigh Hicks wore a cap with printed out photos from her time at Betsy Ross: during her address she said classmates told her how the arts school “gave them a place to be themselves.” One graduate affixed stickers with flags of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to his cap. Regina De Jesus and her daughter Yanilette sat front row to support their graduate, Juneizy. The post 89 Young Artists Graduate From Middle School appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less