That was fun, thanks! One thing, Rory's mom spelled her name LORELAI in the Gilmore Girls. Here's a link, I've never included one in a comment here so sorry if it's not linked:
and i was like WTF when will shortz commented of course the sirens of the rhones are LORELEI?!... wtf who knows that?!... making someone change a puzzle just to edit out a gilmore girls reference?
congrats to your son!! :)... i misinterpreted the meaning of "grades" and misread the clue as grades for some graduates... so tried "HIGH A'S" instead of EIGHTH since i had the G and H locked in...