Like other graduation ceremonies, there were caps and gowns, emotional parents and applause from the audience.

All such ceremonies are poignant, but this one stood out.

Two high school seniors with severe autism received certificates to mark the completion of their 12th year of school Thursday. They attend an alternative program called Step-Up, at the Stepping Stones Center in Indian Hill. The program for autistic teens is the only one of its kind in Greater Cincinnati.
Frank Tolliver couldn’t stop smiling as he held his certificate and posed for photos. Eric Cain was more reserved and probably wondered if people would ever stop snapping pictures.

“It’s good!” Frank said of his moment in the spotlight. He wore his mother’s cap and gown.

“I am so proud of him,” said his mother, Sandra Tolliver. “We are looking for nothing but good things from him.”

Eric’s mom, Dorothy Payne, was proud, too: “I’m not a crier, but I might cry later.”

It was the first such ceremony for the Step-Up program, which is about 4 years old. Technically, it wasn’t a graduation but a completion ceremony. The two will continue at Stepping Stones because school districts are obligated to educate special needs students until age 22.

Those in the Step-Up program for teens have classic autism, which is the most severe form. Among their characteristics: hypersensitivity to their environment, including noises, touches and other stimuli; non-verbal; aggressive or violent behavior.

Those who run the Step-Up program see progress in all eight students currently enrolled.

Read the news article here.

Phillips Academy (also known as Phillips Andover or P.A. or simply Andover) is a co-educational University preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9-12. The school is located in Andover, Massachusetts, north of Boston.

Phillips Academy is the oldest continuously running incorporated boarding school in the United States, established in 1778 by Samuel Phillips, Jr. Phillips Academy’s endowment stood around $670 million on June 30, 2006, the third-highest of any American secondary school.

The academy traditionally educated its students for Yale (and to a lesser extent, Harvard and Amherst), but students now matriculate to a wide range of colleges and universities.

Among other notable alumni, Andover has educated two American Presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, four Medal of Honor recipients, inventor Samuel Morse, and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The Phillipian, the school’s student-run newspaper, is the oldest secondary school newspaper in the US. Likewise, the Philomathean Society is the oldest high school debate society in the nation, established in 1825.

Reference and picture credits.