“The long-standing tradition of Kingsway seniors going to Walt Disney World as the official senior trip is hereby preserved for the class of 2019.” said by the junior class president, Mike Kowal. On Friday, April 20th, the 11th-grade students were called into their class meeting to talk about the upcoming state test, PARCC. The students were told that there would be a surprise at the end of the presentation, but they did not know what to expect. Dr. Lavender said a few words and introduced Junior class President, Mike Kowal.

 The Junior class was overjoyed to find that their Senior Trip was preserved for their class. 11th-grade student, Marie Altmann, stated, “Finally our hard work paid off”. Throughout the past couple of months, the junior class started petitions and some even talked at board meetings. Their main goal was to keep the long-standing tradition of the Disney world senior trip alive for their class.

   Following the presentation, Dr. Lavender sent an email to all students and parents regarding the news. In the email, he stated, “Therefore, this morning I was happy to join our school administrators, class advisors, and junior class officers to announce our decision to preserve our forty plus year tradition for the class of 2019”.

When asked about whether the following classes would also go to Disney, Dr. Lavender responded, “Future classes, assuming attendance remains high, can expect the same”.

Besides the news of the class trip, the newspaper staff also sat down with Principal Craig Stephenson to discuss rumors about graduation and prom.

Q; What decision have been made about prom queen and king, and how they will be selected?

A: There is no change to prom king and queen. We did book the prom at the same venue next year, The Camden Aquarium.

Q: Why was Mr. Kingsway canceled this year?

A: There were a lot of reasons. Primarily, the script never got to a point in which it was going to be appropriate for the Kingsway stage. The young men involved in building that script are all outstanding men, excellent students. They are generally excellent representatives of Kingsway, but for whatever reason, in the process of revising the script, it never got to a point where it was going to be at all appropriate for the Kingsway stage. We have to make sure that anything on our stage is a reflection of who we are as Kingsway, and there was just content in the script that was inappropriate, quite frankly, and it never got to a point where it was going to be appropriate. As we came close to the show there was still substantial revisions that needed to be done that were not anywhere near appropriate. There were some suggestions about changing the format, and the seniors did not want to go forward with a new format.

Q:   I understand the reasoning behind everyone wearing the same robes at graduation. However, there has been a lot of criticism about breaking long-established traditions? What is your response to people who favor traditions?

A: Because something is done traditionally, it doesn’t mean it’s the best and the right way to do things. Colleges and Universities have adopted a single color for years. I graduated from Rutgers back in 1994, and we all wore red and black, Kingsway colors. We all wore the same robes. There was no distinction, male or female. It’s going to help us, too, with the ceremony by making the ceremony run smoother as we will be able to sequence everyone alphabetically. Quite honestly, Mr. Z has been in my ear for years to adopt single color so we can organize people alphabetically. This will shorten the program a little bit. As we continue to grow in size, we want to make sure that we continue to streamline the program, and the single color offers another opportunity to streamline the program. Colleges and universities have done this for years, and most schools are in the process of moving into a single color as well. Plus, I think that our colors, red and black are great colors, and the gowns will look great.

Q: There is a rumor about how future valedictorians and top ten will be handled at graduation? Can you explain any changes being made at this time and why these changes are being made?

A: There is not going to be any change to the valedictorian, the valedictorian will continue to speak at graduation. We have already moved last year to the salutatorian to speaking at the senior ceremony, which will be held on Friday, June 15th. We are bringing back to this year’s ceremony an acknowledgment of the top ten. So, at the outset of handing the diplomas to the graduating class, we will have the top ten come up to receive their diplomas first.