Atlantis Charter graduates ready to embrace the unfamiliar

FALL RIVER – As Atlantis Charter School’s class of 2019 took their first steps into an unknown future Friday evening, they did so with optimism.

This year’s graduating class was made up of 61 students, who became the school’s second-ever graduating class following Atlantis’ creation of a high school program in 2014.

Being able to dive head-first into the mysteries of the unknown proved to be the theme of many of the remarks given Friday evening’s speakers.

In his address to fellow classmates, valedictorian and class president Nathan Botelho asked his “big, dysfunctional family” of graduates to not be intimidated by the uncertainties waiting outside high school.

“While many people may get up here today and tell you what your future is going to look like, the only truth that you can get walking out of here is that no one, not even you, knows what your future entails,” he said. “However, instead of being only scared, let’s be hopeful and optimistic.”

Botelho went on to assure graduates that being scared by the future is normal, but that it is important to be willing to fail.

“Throughout our lives, it will be our successes that will build our reputation. However, and perhaps more importantly, it will be our failures that will build our character,” he said. “We will learn more from our finest failures than we ever will from our most amazing successes.”

Students also heard from Friday night’s commencement speaker, Brian Bermudez, a 2006 graduate of Atlantis’ middle school and current trial attorney for Fall River’s Committee for Public Counsel Services. Like the class’s valedictorian, he also told students to expand their comfort zones.

“Don’t avoid doing something because it’s scary. Do it because it’s scary,” he said.

Bermudez also made a point the make the distinction between the words “graduation” and “commencement.”

Referring to Friday’s commencement ceremony, he said, “It’s not the end of an era but the beginning of your new life. You’re opening yourself up to the world, to new opportunities, and unfamiliar territories.”

Those “new opportunities, and unfamiliar territories” were definitely on the minds of students as they waited in their school’s cafeteria before the ceremony.

“I think I’m more excited about college than graduation, to be honest,” said Kaylee Smith, who plans to attend UMass Dartmouth in the fall. “I know the time is actually here, and that it’s been four years, but it’s been four years that have flown by.”

Graduate Johnathan Bernier, who plans on going to Bristol Community College, also acknowledged that the excitement for the future was mixed with a sadness of leaving friends and teachers behind.

“It is bittersweet,” he said. “I’m nervous, but really at the same time I’m excited to be going out on my own.”