Schools

Todd Slater Receives Diploma, Recovering from Long Island Crash

After missing his mid-June Avon High School graduation due to injuries, the Class of 2012 grad donned his cap and gown at a school board special meeting Tuesday.

It’s not every day you get a standing ovation at a , particularly when you aren't even there.

That was the case for Todd Slater, 18, when his brother, Jeremy, 15, accepted his diploma June 15 on his behalf. Todd Slater was absent because he was  the week before.

“I was touched. I was moved by it,” said Slater, whose chorus teacher, Andrew Brochu, gave him video clips of the moment and his chamber choir singing so he could see it. “It sort of lifted my spirits knowing everybody was keeping me in their thoughts and that I had that much of an impact.”

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While Slater was not able to attend his graduation, he was given a chance to officially receive his diploma at the Board of Education’s special meeting Tuesday night. He donned his blue cap and gown.

Board of Education Chair Peggy Roell handed him the diploma in front of his family, some friends and school officials in a small ceremony. Roell’s son, Garrett, one of Slater’s classmates, gave him a card and gift on behalf of some of his peers.

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Slater, who will attend UConn, said he plans to study computer science. With the equivalent of a college semester's worth of Advanced Placement credit, he hopes to transfer to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.

“I figure why not go into something that’s an expanding field. There are a lot of job opportunities,” Slater said.

Slater, a frequent honor roll student, received the choral department award this year.

For his senior mastery project at , he fused his love of music and computers, composing seven pieces of music about the Ugandan Civil War through a computer program called Fruity Loops.

Slater has dabbled in many instruments over the years and has always sung, including this year as an Avon High chamber choir member. He was musically adept early on, partaking in a Kinder Music program, later learning to play piano, trumpet, cello and, most recently, guitar. When he played the lead in the Unitarian Society of Hartford’s rendition of operetta Amahl and the Night Visitors.

An ÜberBot all four years in high school, Slater looks fondly back on being international semifinalists in the robotics championship in Atlanta in 2008.

He has also competed in USA Biology Olympiad and Chemistry Olympiad, officially ranking in the top 500 biology students across the nation.

He is doing physical therapy for his leg due to a broken femur as a result of a car accident while driving home from a friend’s graduation party in Long Island on June 11. Slater said he noticed a red light last minute, tried to brake and was not able to stop the car at the line. As the car continued through the Route 347 intersection, another vehicle, coming from a steep angle in the crossing Route 111 lane, struck the driver’s side of his car, he said. In addition to the broken femur, Slater cracked ribs and had a lanced spleen.

“I’m getting better every day,” Slater said. “I’m in quite a bit of pain. Every day, it gets a little bit easier.”

His femur may take six to eight weeks to partially heal, he said, in time for him to start his fall semester at UConn. It could take as long as a year to heal completely, he said.


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