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With her exemplary work and determination, senior Caroline
Sweeney, has earned this esteemed honor.
As college and high school graduations take place, thousands
of high achieving students like Caroline, will step to
socially-distanced podiums and deliver their graduating
class’s farewell remarks at commencement ceremonies
virtually this year.
These select students – generally the graduating seniors
with the highest grade point averages, or GPAs – are
recognized with formal titles: valedictorian and
salutatorian respectively.
In covering this story, excitedly, we found out the Sweeney
name carries a lineage of academic excellence.
Following in her siblings' footsteps, Caroline Sweeney will
be the third of her siblings to hold valedictorian and
salutatorian titles in the past four years!
These titles have come to symbolize the highest honors you
can achieve academically and upon high school graduation
every child in the Sweeney home has achieved it.
We sat down
(virtually) with all five members of the Sweeney family to
find out what’s their secret.
Calvin and
Christine Sweeney
lead the
ministry of The Tabernacle Church, located in the heart of
Toledo, at 531 Pinewood Ave. They have extensive academic
backgrounds:
Christine
Sweeney graduated from University of Toledo with a
bachelor’s degree in education from the University of
Toledo.
Calvin Sr. has a bachelor’s
degree in elementary education, a master’s degree in
curriculum and Instruction, mathematics, and a PhD in
Educational Theory and Social Foundations and Leadership all
from the University of Toledo.
As the leaders of this multigenerational house of God,
Calvin and his wife share:
“We’ve been
the pastors at The Tabernacle since 2011. Our church is
focused on introducing people to Jesus while making sure we
show tangible acts of love to our community.”
They have three children who all have had the highest GPAs in their
respective schools, congratulations. What role has education
played in your family?
Christine Sweeney:
“I was raised by my mom with my brother and my mom always stressed the
importance of education. She told us it wasn’t enough just
to graduate from high school but attending college was also
necessary because education brings choices. That’s something
we always talk about in this household; the more education
the more opportunity.”
Calvin Sweeney:
“My great Aunt and Uncle Henry raised my brother and me. They were from
Mississippi and relocated north for a better life. Uncle
Henry routinely reminded us that they were only able to get
up to a third grade level education back then because they
had to work the field. Uncle Henry owned a small
construction company. He would always say to me I do this
type of work because I have to, but I want doors to open for
you. Get your education.
What is your
parenting philosophy?
Christine Sweeney:
Many different factors contribute to our parenting philosophy, but our
faith plays the biggest role in our philosophy as parents.
We believe God blesses us all with talents and skills to use
to the best of our ability. We teach our kids whatever
skills God blesses us with, we need to use.
Calvin and I parent in a two-prong approach to education. We believe in
consistency and continuous engagement. The kids can agree.
Every day after school when they would get into the car, I’d
ask them how their day was and what they learned. They
couldn’t just give one-word answers. I was and will always
ask the follow up questions. When we got home, I always
asked what homework they needed help with. We started this
process with each child in preschool and it became a daily
habit.
Calvin Sweeney:
“We believe that God has given us all a purpose. We encourage our kids
to discover their passions in their academics because we
believe one’s passions always lead to one’s purpose. Me and
my wife Christine always make sure learning takes precedence
over doing. It’s not: “Is your homework done?” It is, “Do
you understand what you learned?”
It’s not enough for our kids to just complete an assignment, they have
to understand it as well.
Who aided in this
understanding?
Christine Sweeney:
“As parents we always encourage the kids to communicate with their
teachers, to find online resources, to learn to navigate
within the library for resources and to use any
resource they have at their disposal. If we don’t know the
answer, we always encourage our kids to use all the
resources they have available to find one. We always tell
them to never feel like because you don’t know the answer
right now, that you should stop looking.”
Are your children
active in the community?
Calvin Sweeney:
“All our children are active with extra curriculars and serve various
roles in church. The girls do a lot with our children’s
church and educational programs, while our son Calvin works
a lot with our production team. Their contributions and
their feedback have helped on a lot of decisions that we
make as a church and a family.”
Christine Sweeney:
“One of the most important things we took into our own hands, is that we
wanted to develop our kids high level thinking
skills. As it pertains to critical thinking, creative
thinking, and decision making, as parents, we never
left it up to the schools to develop their academic life
solely. Instead, we have always involved our children in
conversations and debates. We talk through things and
explain topics thoroughly with our kids then we ask them to
explain it back to us. All of these things are
important. Everyone is poised about debating for the most
part and we have learned that, children too, can be very
thoughtful.”
Then we spoke with the Sweeney
kids. In doing so, we found five distinct categories that
seem to have had the biggest impact on their children’s
academic success.
Academic Understanding
When we asked the children, to what do they attribute their
academic confidence, the consensus was to their parents'
foresight for encouraging them to be individual thinkers.
Calvin Jr, who was salutatorian of Toledo Technology Academy in 2018
shares, “I was the student
that didn’t like too much structure. I needed to let my
ideas flow without micromanagement, so I could better
formulate different ideas and thoughts into action.”
“Our parents gave us each an opportunity to choose the high school we
wanted to attend. As a futuristic person I decided to go to
Toledo Technology Academy.”
“I shadowed a class where they were building robots. I remember
thinking, this is the school for me. Seeing all the
innovation inside the school gave me to be around like
minded people and build on my natural strengths of being a
big thinker.”
Extra Curricular Structure
Christina, the oldest and first to receive the honor of valedictorian of
Start in 2017 shared, “I was cool with everyone and very
sociable in high school. I chose to go to Start High School
because I was playing basketball at the time and had built
some strong relationships there. I also like schedules, so I
loved the structure sports provided in high school. I did
basketball, track and dance. I went with what I knew and
what felt right for me. My parents always encouraged that.”
Parental & Support System Involvement
Weaving fun academic resources into the special events and
programming at The Tabernacle church have also supported
both students and parents in the Toledo community in a
variety of positive ways. “We are very intentional when
partnering with other organizations in the community,”
shares Christine Sweeny. “We believe
children thrive in resource rich environments where parents
build successful partnerships with local schools.”
From Christine Sweeney’s
perspective, sometimes parents just need to be willing to
speak up. “Parents who practice helping their kids with
school-related challenges, naturally feel more comfortable
and knowledgeable when talking to teachers. We have high
expectations but we keep it simple when we encourage our
children to do well in school. We don't force them.”
Parental Trust and Approval
Interestingly, many parents believe restricting their
children's behavior, such as the amount of time they spend
with friends or watching TV, produces positive effects on
grades. The Sweeny’s disagree. Instead they offer the
suggestion of grace.
Express a lot of love
To encourage parents who may need to homeschool during this
pandemic Christine Sweeney says, “I think it’s important to extend grace to yourself and your kids. Make
learning fun. It shouldn’t be about perfection. When we make
learning about perfection kids fight against it. But when
you extend grace to yourself and your kids you create
lifelong learners.”
As schools work to improve traditional instructional
practices during coronavirus closures, our hope is that
parents of school age children have an opportunity to put
the Sweeney’s educational practices to use in their own
homes.
The Sweeneys chimed in to share their youngest daughter’s
accomplishments, too, affirming how proud they are of each
child’s individual accomplishments. “I’m going to share
this for my youngest daughter Heaven who is being shy, she
is a competitive cheerleader, she is also in gifted classes
and doing great things. We can’t wait to see where her
future will take her as well,” says Christine.
As it pertains to graduation ceremonies this year, according to the
superintendent, there will be pomp and circumstance,
complete with the band, each student hearing their name
called and other celebrations that would be seen at a normal
graduation.
TPS Superintendent, Romules Durant, EdD, said the district is having all
three options for the schools: virtual, drive-thru, and
in-person.
Caroline along with the other valedictorians will be the first in the
history to experience this type of virtual ceremony
including a personal presentation of their diplomas
presented by the superintendent himself.
As valedictorian Caroline encourages her fellow graduates to never back
down from a challenge but to instead use the struggle
they’re experiencing during coronavirus lockdowns as fuel
for their future accomplishments recalling, “I think many of
my classmates would say our greatest challenge/victory was
surviving geometry. Though in my personal experience, Mr.
Myers geometry class was one of my favorites.”
When asked how it feels to be named valedictorian of her 2020 graduating
class, Caroline says, “lt is an amazing feeling. There are a
lot of high achievers in Toledo and I am honored to
represent the class of 2020 in academics.”
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