By Sara Keating
Student Life Editor
The confusion surrounding this year’s graduation date is no secret. The publication of the date as June 19 upset many families in the district for various reasons. One week and many phone calls later, the School Board announced that graduation for the class of 2013 would moved up a week earlier to June 12, but this decision had a lot of factors that needed to be addressed before a solution could be reached.
“All secondary students (grade 7-12) require 180 days and 990 hours of instruction,” Neshaminy’s School Board President, Ritchie Webb, said. Holding graduation on June 12 will not meet the required number of days for seniors. Consequently, the District could lose up to $20,000 in state funding.
Setting the graduation date each year proves to be a difficult task due to unforeseen events and inclement weather that are impossible to account for. This year, Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the East Coast, shutting down Neshaminy for a full week. This loss of time pushed the last day of school back and a dictated that students come into school on a few dates that they typically would have had off. In order for seniors to have the mandatory number of hours, graduation had to be pushed back a week. However, what should have been a simple solution turned out to be quite complicated. The week of June 19 is smack-dab in the middle of senior week and many seniors worried about making the drive from the beach to Neshaminy multiple times that week.
“There was a great deal of reaction from high school seniors and their parents asking us to move graduation up to June 12 so they could enjoy the traditional senior week celebration. Many families already booked vacations for the week of June 17,” Webb said.
Perhaps more importantly, many seniors begin summer classes for colleges soon after the 19th and worried that the adjustment would be too much. Also, a handful of members of the class of 2013 will be headed to basic training for the Armed Forces. Would it really be fair for students not to be able to walk at graduation because they have chosen to serve their country?
This is not the first time Neshaminy has experienced this problem. Last year, due to the teacher strike, the class of 2012 feared their graduation date would be pushed back until the end of June. However, the Neshaminy Educational Support Professional Association, NESPA, agreed to work during Spring Break so that students could make up some days without having to extend the year too late into June. The NESPA is comprised of custodians, security, aides, bus drivers, secretaries, and etc. who typically would have off over Spring Break along with the students.
Webb said that the NESPA was not asked to work over this year’s break because “administration felt it would have been too short of notice for parents and staff to try to pull back the Spring Break holiday this year.”
“Last year we were asked to work over Spring Break and we did, not so many years ago we were asked to work over another holiday due to a very bad winter and we did,” President of the NESPA, Mindy Anderson, said. But this year, the NESPA was not asked to work over the break which would have ensured an earlier last day of school for all students, even if it was only by a couple of days. Had they been asked, keeping up with their consistent dependability, it is likely that the NESPA would have agreed to work those extra few days in order to help out.
Difficulties with setting the graduation date arise each year, but each party concerned seems to have the student body’s best interests in mind while staying within the parameters that have been established by the state.
Webb hopes to see to it that the District’s “official policy be to schedule graduation to occur two days prior to the last day of school for grades K thru 11,” in order to guarantee that this issue does not occur again in future years.
