The girls are in their prettiest dresses. The boys in suits, dress shirts, ties, and hats. The parents, dressed in their finery, too, have still and video cameras and relatives in tow. They wait outside of the John Jay High School building for the doors to open on the PS 321 Fifth Grade graduation.

"Congratulations to you," Mr. McGarry calls to Smartmom. "This is your second graduation, right?"

Smartmom explains that she’s just getting a preview of OSFO’s graduation next year. But Mr. McGarry’s daughter is graduating this year.

"We still have one to go," he says, his wife Jacqi, also a PS 321 teacher, smiles.

"What are you doing here?" Ciao Bella, a neighbors asks. "Just getting a preview, that’s all."

This morning in OSFO’s fourth grade class, the group sang "Wonderful World," "This Pretty Planet," and "Stand by Me" to the parents.

It was tear city from the get go. The kids had devised their own cute choreography. Afterwards, the teachers showed a a four-song slide montage. It was no casual tribute to the children of class of 4-308. No, no, no. The teachers documented so many of the great things the class did together and the pictures just oozed with a sense of community and camraderie.

Smartmom found that very moving, too.

Next year, Smartmom will be standing on line waiting to get into OSFOs graduation. She remembers Teen Spirit’s one hot day in June in 2002. But OSFO’s will be her last graduation as a parent at PS 321 and it will be especially poignant.

Ducky will graduate from PS 321 in 2014. Wow, now that’ll be the day.

To anyone who went to the graduation: Who was there. Which politicians. Oh, that must be why I saw Bill Di Blasio at Mr. Falafel. Who else was there? Do tell. :