The alarm rings. Roll over. It’s 6:35. Get out of bed. Yawn. Take shower. Get dressed. Dry off. Brush teeth. Put in right contact. Put in left contact. Comb hair. Eat breakfast. Put on Nikes.  And this is just the first half of my morning.

The whole second half of my morning consist of checking my book bag to make sure I have all my needed school items for the day: my completed homework, my planner (with all assignments crossed off), 3 sharpened Nixon Ticonderoga number 2 pencils, my 4 binders, my 2 folders and my TI- 84 calculator. Now one might say, “Jordan! Why are you spending so long checking your book bag?” My reply is “because I go to Cherry Hill East.”

Just like many other students, I check my iPhone constantly. I’ll occasionally click on my gadget website bookmarks to see what’s the latest in technology. I’ll check my Facebook thread a few times a day and see what’s going on in people’s lives. And then there’s parentaccess.chclc.org (AKA Progress Book). Throughout my four years at East, Progress Book has become such a part of my life that I would occasionally check it during the summer.  One might ask, “Jordan! Why do you check Progress Book so frequently?” My reply is simple, “because I go to Cherry Hill East.”

At East, we learn that our academic success must be compared with solely ourselves. I personally am not going to compare myself to our valedictorians or to students taking all honors classes, but I will look back and say that I succeeded to my greatest ability. And that is what East is all about; a bunch of kids thrown together with all different backgrounds, to learn, to educate and to succeed.