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Mostly Cloudy Central graduation moving off campus
The class of 2013 at Valley Stream Central High School will be graduating at the C.W. Post Tilles Center on Wed., June 19 at 5 p.m., marking the first time one of Valley Stream’s three high schools hosts its graduation ceremony outside the district.
The Central High School District Board of Education voted 7-0 in favor of approving a contract with C.W. Post for use of the venue at its meeting on Tuesday, after discussing the idea for weeks prior, including at its previous meeting on Dec. 4.
Some board members cited graduating on a Wednesday as a potential cause for concern, but Superintendent Dr. Bill Heidenreich said with little time to book a venue as all of the weekend slots have already been taken.
“A lot of the primetime graduation times are booked well in advance,” he said, “so Tilles Center, Hofstra…if you want a Friday evening, or Saturday, or Saturday evening or Sunday morning, places have it booked almost in perpetuity.”
Trustee Jeanne Greco Jacobs had a problem with holding graduation on a Wednesday. “My concern is that this becomes a tradition going forward that we can’t have graduation on Friday or thereafter on Saturday or Sunday that weekend.” She added if North and South high schools moved their graduation ceremonies off-site in the future and had no choice but to hold the ceremony on a Wednesday, then that would throw off the prom schedule. Proms at those two schools are normally held on the Wednesday before graduation.
The district will pay $9,536 for use of the facility, but Heidenreich said holding Central’s graduation ceremony off-site is cost neutral from hosting it within the district. “It’s on par with what it costs to rent and do a double chair set up, in terms of custodial overtime, sound system setups,” he said. “Clearly if off-site graduation was twice as what it costs on-site, I’d have serious concerns about it in terms of budget, but it’s really neutral.”
After Central Principal Dr. Joseph Pompilio hosted several meetings with parents and students this school year, it was determined that the majority of the school community favored an off-site ceremony. Central is the only high school within the district that does not graduate on school grounds if there is inclement weather — the ceremony is then held at Memorial Junior High School, which has been the case the last two years.
Student parking issue still divisive
The board also continued its discussion on the district’s student parking policy that prohibits students from taking their cars off school grounds during the school day. The policy went into effect in 2010 in an attempt to prevent students from rushing to and from school during lunch periods. The problem with the policy, some board members said, is that students simply do not park in the lots and are electing to park on the nearby streets and continue to drive to lunch.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me when I see five kids walking two blocks from the school to get in a car in front of my house to go out to lunch to come back and run back to school,” said Trustee Joe DiSibio. “The policy is not efficient.”
District officials have said the school communities at North and South would like the policy to be changed, but it’s a bigger issue at North, while the Central community is indifferent toward the policy.
Jacobs, who is in favor of keeping the policy intact, said the board’s main goal in establishing the policy was student safety, and that goal still remains. “We haven’t given it enough time to set in,” she said. “It takes at least five to six years for a culture change to take place. We haven’t given our own policy enough time to take root.”
Board President Tony Iadevaio said students are rushing more during lunch periods because their cars are parked farther away from the building. “Personally I think three years is long enough to see if met our goals and I don’t really think it met our goals,” he said.
The board will vote on whether or not to change the policy at its Jan. 8 meeting.
