Schools

Teachers, Community Members Criticize Graduation Decision

The meeting was in reaction to a last-minute decision to open graduation to 41 students who hadn't completed requirements.

Teachers, parents and district employees criticized the at a community forum Tuesday night.

“This was a slap in the face to our administrators, counselors and teachers and all the hard work we do for our students,” said Paul Petterson, a teacher at for 16 years. “It sends the wrong message.”

The meeting in response to a public outcry over a last-minute decision to allow 41 seniors who still had to complete credits in summer school to walk across the stage in the graduation ceremonies at South San Francisco and high schools.

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Board policy adopted this fall doesn’t routinely allow such students to participate in graduation ceremonies, but it does give the superintendent the discretion to allow certain students who will complete graduation requirements during the summer to participate in the regular graduation ceremony.

Much of the discussion Tuesday night centered around whether Acting Superintendent Adolfo Melara used that discretion appropriately. Historically, the school district has not allowed students who didn’t earn diplomas to participate in the graduation ceremony.

Find out what's happening in South San Franciscowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Melara first contacted South San Francisco High School Principal Michael Coyne on Thursday, the last day of school, with the intention to intercede in the case of one student. This student had more than enough overall credits to graduate but had failed a required English course. Because he was enrolled in summer school to make up the requirement and met all other graduation requirements, Melara decided the student should be allowed to participate in graduation the next day.

According to Melara, Coyne offered that there were other students who wouldn’t be graduating who met the same criteria. As a result of this conversation, Melara directed both principals that all students who met graduation requirements—besides five to 10 units that could be made up over the summer—would be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony.

On Friday morning, he sent both principals an email asking them to prepare a list of students who met the criteria and to notify the students. The resulting lists included 18 students from El Camino High School and 23 from South San Francisco High School. Nearly all of the students on the South San Francisco High School list ended up coming to graduation and about half of the El Camino High School students participated, according to Melara.

“I think this was not at all in keeping with the board policies that were adopted,” said community member Chris Kiely at Tuesday’s meeting. “The board did not make a decision that any kid that was going to take classes over the summer and get the right number of credits should graduate. The superintendent is supposed to exercise discretion. His job is to evaluate every other one of those kids.”

School Board President Maurice Goodman agreed that the procedure for selecting the students to participate in the graduation ceremony was flawed.

“As soon as we went past the one child, it’s no longer discretion,” Goodman said. “As soon as we went away from that, that was a problem. Did we drop the ball? Yes.”

Erik Migdail, an English teacher at South San Francisco High School, taught the first student whom Melara decided to allow participate in graduation. He said the student failed his required English class twice, and he doubted that the student would be able to complete the requirement over the summer.

Migdail said that earlier in the year, when he told the student what he would have to do to pass his course, the student replied, “’Mr. Migdail, that’s impossible. I just don’t understand this stuff.’”

Migdail said he wasn’t consulted on the decision to allow the student to participate in graduation.

“I spent weeks talking to that student,” he said. “You undercut that support.”

Sarah Funes, 19, now a student at the College of San Mateo, was a member of the South San Francisco High School Class of 2010. She spoke at the meeting, saying she failed Mr. Migdail’s class and had to repeat her senior year.

“I completed those units and I walked across that stage and I deserved it,” Funes said. “No one did me any favors. I walked because I earned it.”

Melara defended the flexibility to allow some students to participate if they were close to completing their requirements. He said that doing so doesn't degrade standards because they aren't given a diploma until they earn one.

"Coming close also counts for our students," Melara said.


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