Graduation Day (1)

One week after the final exams, the scores were released by the school on their website. Maple-leaf academy had decided to begin releasing the scores publicly several years ago after one teacher suggested it would increase the student's competitiveness and encourage them to try harder.

When the students saw the scores, nearly everyone was shocked by the results. The highest scoring student was Aria Song with a score of 100% on every single test. Even more astounding was the fact that her roommate Aika Suzuki had tied her for first place with a similar 100%, though when they saw the note attached to that that she was exempt from independent study because she had just transferred, the students who were below her all breathed out sighs of relief.

What shocked everybody the most though was the results Emma Song received on her tests. After they had seen Aria's they assumed that her younger sister would at the very least place within the top 10, but they hadn't expected that she would score 100% on everything as well.

The results were completely dominated by these 3 students.

Seeing the top 3 scores, most students had initially assumed that the tests were simply easier this year but when they continued down the list, they saw that everyone else did the same as the other years averaged, all getting around 90-95%.

Some of the students were ready to call their parents and throw fits that these pampered kids all cheated to get perfect scores, but the school released a statement that they had gotten suspicious at the results and reviewed the testing footage. The footage had revealed that not only had the student's not struggled on any of the questions, they all finished them with relative ease compared to the other students.

Of course, the school didn't release that as the official statement, they just said that after extensive review, they had determined that there was no cheating involved.

Maple-leaf Academy's teachers were actually feeling extremely ashamed after they had graded all of the tests. They had expected Aria to do well based on her entrance scores when she transferred, but the fact that all 3 of the students who had transferred into the school after attending other high schools for a time preformed the best didn't leave a good taste in their mouths.

The dean made an instant decision that they would be reviewing their teaching methods and policies over the summer instead of having vacation. He even went as far as contacting all the teachers of the schools the girls had attended and invited them to come to a teaching seminar they were suddenly hosting.

Out of all of the teachers and other school staff, the one who was the most embarrassed was the dean himself. For all these years they had held the reputation of being the best school around and suddenly these 3 students who had initially gone to other schools came and performed better than the students who attended Maple-leaf for all 4 years.

Although the statement itself probably wouldn't have convinced the students nothing unspoken was going on behind the scenes, the look on the dean's face in the statement video had been convincing enough. He had looked like he was a mix of ashamed and furious and everyone felt shivers run down their backs at his terrifying glare.

Despite his decision to review the teaching methods, the dean secretly blamed the students for simply not preforming up to expectations.

It had always been a thorn in his side that almost no students got perfect marks on the test but now that he was seeing people who had spent time at other schools get perfect scores, he felt as if he needed to make the conditions to get in to Maple-leaf even harder to weed out all these bad apples.

Sighing, he set aside his thought about the changes he would need to make over the summer and fixed his outfit.

Even though it had the ability to do so, Maple-leaf Academy had never in it's history invited anyone to speak at it's graduation ceremony. The guests were all highly successful and busy people who didn't have the time to waste listening to empty words from someone who they'd likely done business with before.

Once he was satisfied with his outfit, he paused in a rare moment of anxiety and hesitation. This was one of the most important days of the year for Maple-leaf academy and if he did poorly, parents who were considering attempting to send their children here may decide to send them elsewhere.

He paced for several minutes while reciting his speech under his breath to ensure he had it fully memorized.

Satisfied, he finally took a sip of water and then walked out onto the stage to begin the graduation ceremony.