"All pass"

"All pass" is Indiaspeak for "everyone passed" the board exams!!!

All six of our students passed with above-average scores. We are thrilled, although some of the kids had hoped to perform even better. The main point is that they can now continue on to eleventh and twelfth grade. We were initially hoping to keep them at Rising Star next year, but we would need at least fifteen students to start a new grade. The children's hostel is also running out of space.

So it looks like they'll be beginning eleventh standard at a school near Chengelput, forty-five minutes away. We'll miss them.

It's a distinction in India when all the students in a school pass the tenth standard board exams. They call it "100% results." We were fortunately able to allot our few students much-needed personal attention and care, because this outcome was far from certain and at times even seemed improbable.

Here are five of the six, but I'll take what I can get: boys Rajesh and Shankar, and girls Buelah, Sujatha, and Gracy. Mahalakshmi, who scored the highest, will have to await my next photo shoot. Unlike the younger kids, these students don't relish sitting on the receiving end of the lens. Adolescent whining and groaning prevail! This must have been take twenty, where finally they aren't rolling their eyes at me or poking each other.