HARRISONBURG, Va – The Harrisonburg City Public Schools Dual Language program celebrated its upcoming first graduating class with a reunion Tuesday afternoon.

Thirty current Harrisonburg High School seniors began the program, which offers a bilingual approach to school for kids whose first language is not English, at Smithland Elementary in 2010.

Gloria Figueroa-Vargas, now an assistant principal at Harrisonburg High, was a teacher when this cohort of students reached ninth grade. She said seeing these kids ready to graduate was an emotional moment.

Program director Dr. Jeremy Aldrich said over 12-hundred students are now part of the Dual Language pathway.