For nearly twelve years ago, 20 of their classmates in the first grade were killed in one of the deadliest attacks on a school in the USA.
Now the survivors are taking their exams with mixed emotions.
Many former classmates and teachers could not attend the graduation ceremony with the graduating class in Newtown, Connecticut on Wednesday.
They fell victim to the school shooting in Sandy Hook on 14 December 2012. In total, 20 first-grade pupils and six teachers were killed.
We've been waiting for this day our whole lives, since nursery school. Now it's here and we're ready, but it's impossible to forget that a big part of our class is missing, says Emma Ehrens, now 17 years old, and one of the eleven first-graders in classroom 10 who survived the attack.
She managed to escape when the perpetrator reloaded his weapon and another pupil shouted for everyone to run. That pupil was later one of the five children killed in the classroom.
Emma Ehrens is glad to have finished high school, she says, but feels sorrow at having to go on stage without everyone being able to be there.
I want to believe they'll be there with us and walk across the stage with us.
Last week, several of the young people met with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House to talk about their experiences. The event has motivated them to engage against gun violence.
I wanted to turn something so terrible into something else, and that these children and educators didn't die in vain, says survivor Lilly Wasilnak.
