At Monday night’s Triton School Board meeting a difficult and important decision was made in regards to graduation.
The board, by recommendation of Superintendent Donna Burroughs voted to move graduation from Sunday, May 31st at 2:00 to Sunday, June 7th at 2:00 P.M.
Burroughs explained the reasons for the change. Because Triton schools have canceled school for 6 days due to weather and or road issues, they have used up all of their make-up days (through Friday, May 29th). Indiana’s unpredictable weather could still offer the possibility of additional make-up days. Allowing for that possibility Burroughs explained, “The extra days from June1-5 allow for that possibility.”
Another reason is that Indiana now requires that ALL students K-12 attend school the required 180 days. Seniors no longer can “get out early”. If school is not held the full 180 days, the state takes money away from our corporation. Burroughs stated, “We cannot afford that.”
At this time, the state has not given Triton any automatic waivers like last year or any options for making up days like they did last year by staying 30 minutes extra on Fridays.
The last two days of the year in high school are spent doing final exams, which mean seniors will have finals on Friday, May 29th. To get finals graded and semester grades calculated, determine who met graduation requirements at the last minute, and awards like Valedictorian/Salutatorian calculated would require very speedy work and could result in errors. The Triton superintendent commented to its parents in a letter, “Graduation is too important to rush the preparations and increase the possibility of errors.”
Burroughs indicated in the letter, “We could do make-ups on Saturdays, but that would interfere with all of the Saturday schedules that are already set, and we believe family time is important. Plus after five full days of working hard and learning, kids, (and staff), need the weekend break. Using Memorial Day as a make-up day of school has also been tried in the past, and was not found to be effective.”
Triton could apply for an “eLEarning” day, but they haven’t been sending computers home and many of their student’s homes do not have internet access or computers.
These are the reasons the Triton School Board opted to move graduation back one week.
In future years, there will be a disclaimer printed on all calendars to say that the posted graduation date is tentative depending on the severity of the winter and the number of make-up days needed.
Burroughs closed her letter to parents saying, “We know it may be an inconvenience for some, and I apologize for that, but we have to make decisions that work K-12.”
