'Smart Scholar' Earns Scholarships Ahead Of STEAM Academy Graduation

MOUNT VERNON, NY — A Mount Vernon City School District initiative, that launched nearly four years ago, is reaping rewards for students, who are graduating with a leg up on the competition.

From the Mount Vernon City School District.

Kevon Palmer is a senior at Mount Vernon STEAM Academy and one of the first Smart Scholars in the Mount Vernon City School District. He plays sports, donates his time to community service and has maintained high grades all throughout high school.

He began taking advanced classes with Smart Scholars, an accelerated early college high school program, in his freshman year, the program’s first year in the Mount Vernon City School District. He also took Algebra in eighth grade to prepare him for more advanced classes in high school.

Kevon has a 3.3 GPA and has taken AP classes in each of his years at Mount Vernon STEAM Academy. He is currently taking five AP classes, and he has already earned college credits from his AP courses in previous years.

He also completed a STEM Program at Iona University and the Lehman College Pipeline to College Partnership Program, a rigorous year-round science, mathematics and computer science program designed to prepare students for college. He was awarded for his academic achievement in the College Board National African American Recognition Program. He also completed a six-week summer program at Mercy University last summer.

Kevon participated in Destination: College, an after-school enrichment program that assists with the college planning process. He has also been a member of My Brother’s Keeper since 11th grade, where he was a fellow leader in the mentoring and leadership program. He is also a member of the No Place for Hate Committee and helped spread awareness for bullying prevention.

He has played soccer since 10th grade, swimming and track and field. He was also a member of the Chess Club, Futsal Club, Gaming Club and Coding Club at the STEAM Academy.

He has given time to community service by donating blood, which he plans to do again, and being a member of the High School Heroes, a group of high school students who go to elementary and middle schools in Mount Vernon to teach. He taught at an elementary school earlier in the year and will teach at another one soon, earning community service hours for both. He also volunteered for a coat drive in New Rochelle.

Kevon has already been accepted into a number of colleges, including Pace University and St. John’s University and Monroe College. He was also awarded several yearly merit scholarships for colleges he was accepted into. He received $16,000 per year from Pace, $28,000 per year from St. Johns and $26,000 per year from Manhattanville College.

His dream school is New York University, where he would like to study engineering. He wants to work in computer engineering, so he also applied to many other engineering schools such as the New York Institute of Technology. He would also like to take time to design his own video game one day.