One memory sticks out to Olivia Smith about her earliest days at Ballantyne Ridge High School: her orientation, where her homeroom teacher Jeffrey Buseick greeted her with a big smile.
“Even then when we were juniors, knowing we had two years, he was there, cheering us on,” she said.
On Saturday, the roars and applause of Ballantyne Ridge staff, friends and family members filled Bojangles Coliseum as 279 students walked the stage as part of the high school’s first graduating class, adding to the 22 graduates who finished mid-year.
In 2024, its inaugural year, Ballantyne Ridge had no seniors. Instead, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools gave rising juniors the opportunity to choose between remaining at their old school or switching to Ballantyne Ridge. Saturday’s ceremony recognized not only the students moving into college, the workforce or whatever their next step may be, but it also celebrated the community and culture these students built from the ground up…