Over 100 sophomores attended the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme certificate ceremony on June 11. The final list for receiving the certificate consisted of 256 sophomores.

The Middle Years programme is an education program created by International Baccalaureate for ages 11-16, and grades 7-10 in high schools across the country. After the programme, students have the option to attempt to receive the IB diploma.

The requirements to receive the certificate are to complete 100 hours of community service along with reflections. The hours are split up, with 25 hours and three reflections for sophomore and freshman year, and only the community service hours for seventh and eighth grade.

“The community hours may seem like a lot of hours, but over the course of four years it is easy to get it done,” Louie Boyum said. “I completed my hours by assisting the elderly in Washington D.C.”

The other requirement to the certificate is the personal project, where students can either work by themselves or in groups to create a final product of something that interests them.
Examples of these personal projects include Alec Brown’s canoe, which he made himself. Brown was also one of the speakers at the ceremony.
“It was a lot of hard work and effort, but I knew it would be worth it when I saw the result and took it out for a trial run on the lake,” Brown said.

The guest speaker at the ceremony was Ryan McElveen, known for his popularity on Twitter and being a member of the school board. He talked to students and parents on how prestigious the honor being received was.

The students that attended the ceremony were
handed their certificate on the stage with their English class, along with their teacher giving them their certificate. All the work for the personal project had to be handed in to their English teacher.

“I was surprised that so many sophomores made the list for the certificate,” Jonathan Lindsay said. “We truly have a hard working class of 2016.”