grad night saga

Telephone call would have changed outcome

This has been a very interesting couple of weeks since my original letter and I’Äôm pleased with all the conversations that have taken place. Let me start by saying ’Äúdon’Äôt throw the baby out with the bath water.’Äù Grad Night is a good thing and I know the majority of parents who helped organize this event did so with the best of intentions. I’Äôm sure they were caught off guard by the controversy surrounding the LPO students.

The committee keeps saying that allowing the LPO kids to attend would have put them at risk of losing grant money. So I called Camille McCashland, program specialist for the Division of Safe and Drug Free Schools at the Department of Education.

She said that, indeed, the grant is specific on several issues. 1) the event must be on the night of graduation. 2) it is for the graduates of the applying school. However, when I explained the situation to her, she told me that they probably would have been able to work with the committee to allow those four students to attend. She said that the committee just would have had to make a phone call. But no phone call was made.

It took me 10 minutes on the internet to track her down. This seems like it would have been a no-brainer to make this call when all of this happened. It’Äôs my thought however, that the ’Äúfew’Äù making the most ’Äúnoise’Äù weren’Äôt interested in problem solving, only excluding.

RANDY WILHELM

Laclede