These 400 Philly kids almost didn’t make it to the finish line. They collected their diplomas Thursday.

School faded as a priority when Simone Smith was a senior at Lincoln High, after her beloved grandmother died.

“I didn’t have no one telling me to get up, go to class, so I missed a lot of school,” said Smith, 18.

Her grades slipped, and she narrowly missed graduating with her class in June. But that near-miss galvanized her.

Summer school “was easy” once she buckled down, Smith said — she completed social science and English requirements, and on Thursday, she collected her hard-won diploma, one of nearly 400 Philadelphia School District students who crossed the stage at summer graduation after earning a handful of credits in summer school.

“This graduation was delayed, but not denied,” author, actor, and poet Jaylene Clark Owens told a packed auditorium at the Met on North Broad Street.

Smith, who wore a custom-made stole honoring her grandmother and will now enroll and play Division I basketball at Georgia Southern University, was thrilled.

“It just feels great to be able to do this,” she said. “Me and my sister are the only ones that got our high school diplomas — my family has a lot of dropouts. But I wanted to do it for my Nana.”

The graduation was a boisterous scene of joy and celebration: young people in an array of caps and gowns representing schools from all over the district, some in T-shirts and shorts under their robes, some in party dresses. Families wept, cheered, shouted: “You did that!” There was a steady drumbeat of applause, a sea of flowers and camera flashes, the arms of bursting-with-pride-parents reaching out to touch passing graduates.

A beaming school board president Reginald Streater said Thursday’s graduation was no less significant or important than the ceremonies that happened in June.

“You took ownership of your future,” Streater said. “There is never just one path to success. We believe in you, and we can’t wait to see all that you accomplish.”