Mastery charter graduates revel in their college choices

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Aaron Moselle and Zack Seward for NewsWorks

Cheering fans, cheerleaders, and mascots filled Temple University’s Liacouras Center on Monday afternoon.

None of them was there for a game.

Instead, thousands of students, staff members and parents traveled to the North Philadelphia arena for Mastery Charter Schools’ first-ever College Signing Day, an event patterned after National Signing Day for high school athletes.

The unbridled excitement during Monday’s ceremony, however, was all about academics.

As underclassmen roared in the stands, more than 450 seniors from across the nonprofit’s 12-school network were honored for their post-secondary commitments.

O’Shea Knox, who attends Mastery’s Pickett Campus in Germantown, was among those who took a seat beneath the center’s scoreboard.

It was a big moment.

"I didn’t expect to get this far," said Knox, who plans to study accounting at Bloomsburg University.

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