Wallingford to weigh options for future high school graduations

As published in the Record Journal Wednesday May 29, 2013

By Eric Vo
Record-Journal staff
evo@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2235
Twitter:@ericvoRJ

WALLINGFORD — There may be changes in how the town’s high schools conduct graduation ceremonies, as the Board of Education and school administrators look at alternatives for future graduations that will allow family and friends to attend ceremonies for both schools.

“We’re all sensitive to the fact that family members may live on both sides of town and clearly want to participate in a student’s graduation. It’s a milestone for any student,” said Board of Education Chairwoman Roxane McKay. “It’s something that has merit and value for us to discuss for next year and future years.”

Both schools now hold their graduation ceremonies on the same night, at the same time. McKay, as well as the rest of the board, was told by Youth and Social Services Director Craig Turner earlier this month that he had spoken to a number of family members of graduates who had to choose between attending the Lyman Hall or Sheehan graduation. School Superintendent Salvatore Menzo also acknowledged talking to families about the issue.

“I’ve talked to a couple of families. One grandparent in particular expressed difficulty in having two kids on either side of town,” Menzo said.

To prevent a similar situation in the future, a few ideas were suggested: consolidating both graduations into one event or having the graduations start at different times, giving family members a chance to attend both.

If both graduations were combined at one venue, the duration of the ceremony would increase. There are about 500 seniors total, Menzo said. Typically, a graduation ceremony is about an hour and 15 minutes, according to Sheehan Principal Rosemary Duthie. Combining the graduations would not only increase the duration of the ceremony but would also take away its meaning, Duthie said.

“I would prefer to keep it separate,” Duthie said. “Each school has its own identity. It’s an important ritual for teenagers to go through and it’s nice to go through it with your class and have your identity maintained.”

Because of this, McKay said she had mixed feelings about the idea and believes consolidating the graduations wouldn’t be the first choice for administrators and board members to pursue.

“The students take such great pride in saying, ‘I am a Lyman Hall or Mark T. Sheehan graduate,’ ” McKay said. “You want to honor that to the very last experience.”

One theme that repeatedly came up during discussions was Project Graduation.

“The challenge is that we want to get as many students participating in Project Graduation, which takes place directly after graduation,” McKay said. “We don’t want any downtime after graduation.”

As things stand, students who sign up for Project Graduation are taken from their respective high schools to the Parks and Recreation center as soon as graduation ceremonies conclude, Menzo said. This is done to prevent students from having the opportunity to show up to Project Graduation under the influence. If one high school has a graduation earlier in the day, “we just provided that one school that down time,” McKay said.

“I am torn,” McKay said. “I don’t think there is an ideal option out there. No matter what we choose, it poses some kind of challenge.”

McKay said the board and administrators will discuss the topic further during the winter. In the meantime, Menzo’s staff is examining what other school systems’ graduation plans are — something that can pose a challenge in itself.

“A lot of these districts don’t have the Project Graduation,” Menzo said. “If you don’t have it, it’s not an issue. We don’t want to do away with the event.”

Both Menzo and McKay said that before any action is taken, conversations will be held with students and parents to give them the opportunity to voice their opinions.

“It’ll give us a chance to really be thoughtful of what’s important to the district,” McKay said. “We’ll open it up and we’d like to see our community weigh in on it and see how our families feel about it.”