by Samantha Schwartz ’16

Maryland Senator Ben Cardin is set to speak at Sherwood’s graduation June 11, 2013 at DAR Constitution Hall after being chosen by a group of individuals at school. Senator Cardin will be delivering a college-level, advanced speech to honor the Senior Class and their staff, faculty, family and friends.

Social studies resource teacher Joe Sangillo was able to help secure the Senator to speak at graduation due to the fact that Sangillo was chosen to participate in the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation, a federally funded scholarship program for social studies. The foundation chooses a teacher per year to receive a scholarship to earn a Master’s degree in content related to the Constitution. Sangillo was then chosen to work for Senator Cardin in an additional program that allowed him to gain experiences that will enrich his classroom instruction. This close experience with the Senator allowed Sangillo the opportunity to ask him to speak at graduation.

Sangillo believes it is a fantastic opportunity to have Cardin speak at graduation. “[Senator Cardin] has represented Maryland in public service his entire career—in the Maryland General Assembly, U.S. House of Representatives and now the U.S. Senate…In addition to his long career in public service, he has always been quite supportive of public education,” said Sangillo.

A large amount of work and planning go into preparing for graduation, and the Senior Class officers have a significant part in the process. “The class officers have to choose what the invitations look like, ensure that we have a graduation speaker, prepare which members of the Senior Class will speak [speeches, introductions, pledge of allegiance], as well as work on other details for the event,” explained Senior Class president Nikki Steiner. Although the class officers only have partial involvement in choosing the speaker, they were told that Sangillo would help get Senator Cardin and they supported this plan.

 Math teacher Karen Bellamy’s role as the class sponsor is to be responsible for securing the graduation speaker. This can come with a risk of a last minute cancellation, especially with someone with such importance as senator Cardin. ” The Capitol and DAR Constitution hall is just down the street from one another, so if Senator Cardin needed to return to the Capitol quickly he wouldn’t have far to go. We are just going to cross our fingers” said Bellamy.