Home-schoolers barred from Washington commencement

WASHINGTON — Working through a broken air conditioner and rapidly approaching graduation date, the Washington school board opted not to enact a district policy change that would have allowed home-schooled students to participate in commencement during their monthly meeting Wednesday night.

Although requirements may change soon, Washington’s HSAP students are currently only required to finish 48 credit hours to receive a certificate of completion, rather than the 56 required for a traditional high school diploma.

Board members Mindi Rees and Mike Liska made a motion to approve the change, saying they’d heard overwhelmingly positive feedback from constituents. It was voted down by Kelly Smith, Eric Turner and Jim Almelien in a 2-3 tally. Board member Sonia Leyva — who last month signaled enthusiasm about the proposal — was absent from the meeting.

“There’s other areas of our school district, like the special ed area or the WRAP center, that are a little differentiated themselves, but they still get to walk at graduation as well,” Rees said. “I think of the HSAP kids as another subset of those. If we’re letting those kids walk at the graduation ceremony, and they have, at times, different credentials or requirements, how are we singling out the home-schooled, dual-enrolled kids and saying that they can’t?”

Almelien said he’d heard the opposite, however, when consulting the public.

“I’ve talked to numerous former school officials and more of my generation of people,” said, the oldest member of the Washington school board. “It’s nine-to-one not in favor of changing it … and in the end, if you make the change, you’re stuck with it. Good, bad, or indifferent.”

Other members who voted no gave different rationales.

Smith said the commencement ceremony was not intended for home-schooled students, but said she might change her mind if the district’s HSAP requirements aligned with those for traditional students.

“They chose not to do education through the public school, so I think that the public graduation for the public school didn’t apply to (them,)” she said in an interview after the meeting.

Turner said he would be more open to a reform if HSAP criteria changed. Still, he remained worried about setting a precedent of lower requirements, and that a change of expectations in the middle of a school year would be unfair.

“It’s like we’re changing our rule in the middle of a game,” he said. “If we were to make a change, it seems like we should make it for next year … it would be more appropriate, so people know what they’re working toward.”

The proposal came up after an open-enrolled family in Washington’s HSAP program asked for their student to walk the stage with his peers, sharing the spotlight with friends he’d made playing on the school’s athletic teams.

Superintendent Willie Stone said the district had offered to host a home school-exclusive commencement ceremony for the last several years, but never garnered enough traction to do so. That made the family’s request something of an anomaly.

“There are other districts that do that,” he noted, but said there were, “Not enough who would choose to be involved” in Washington.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com