Students at Washington D.C.’s SEED School were excited to get a visit from President Barack Obama, former president Bill Clinton, Sen. Ted Kennedy and others to promote the signing of a new $5.7 billion national service act. But it was the presence of pop star Usher that appeared to thrill the high school students the most, according to the Washington Post.

SEED campus once plagued by gunfire and lurking drug dealers in the surrounding blocks of its southeast neighborhood. It has since then undergone a positive transformation since Rajiv Vinnakota of the SEED Foundation struck a deal with the District in 2001 to rename and transform the facility.

“In 1992, on this campus, a 5-year-old girl was shot by stray gunfire,” Vinnakota said Tuesday. “In 1997, the school building was set on fire, there were 25 other fires and the building was closed. In 2001, we started the SEED School, and since that time, 98 percent of our students have gone on to college.”

“This school is a true success story, a place where for four of the last five years, every graduate from the SEED School was admitted to college. Every graduate,” said President Obama.