No Test Scores, No Graduation

By Howard Buck, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.

Jun. 24–WASHOUGAL — Jessica Sunderland and Peter Yon never wore their graduation gowns.

Jessica returned hers. Peter said he feels more like burning his.

Both are Washougal High School seniors who thought they would graduate this year. But because of their just-failing scores on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, and a delay in grading state-approved alternatives, neither was allowed to walk at commencement.

They’ve been assured their last attempt to qualify, a handful of writing samples sent to Olympia in early June, should get them over the hump.

But there’s disconnect between earning a diploma and getting to walk at graduation. State authorities consider August the finish line, under new rules in place for the class of 2008. But Washougal School District officials hold that anyone shy of credits or other requirements on graduation day doesn’t walk.

That left Jessica, 17, and Peter, 18, on the outside. They sat and watched 165 classmates march across the stage at Fishback Stadium on June 14.

“Who does it hurt if we walk?” Peter said.

Both students entered their senior year behind the curve. They previously flunked the WASL reading portion, so they took it again in April, only to fail by a single point. Working with teachers, they’d also written a dozen or so short essays, submitted to the state back in February as a WASL alternative.

When the results came back in May, both had failed again by one point.

Peter and Jessica’s last option was to submit another handful of essays, which they knocked off early this month. But Olympia won’t have results until late July or August.

So, no graduation ceremony.

“I feel badly for the two students. It’s sad that they didn’t get it right exactly in time for graduation, but they’ll eventually get it,” said Teresa Baldwin, Washougal superintendent.

She and school board members discussed the duo’s fate during a June 10 meeting. They chose to stick with Washougal’s longtime, hard-and-fast rule.

“Traditionally, one of the things superintendents do at graduation is certify that all students have met the qualifications,” Baldwin said. “An exception might give future seniors incentive to skate. And more students fall into that exception, and then what have you got? You’ve diluted the rule.”

Still, these seniors did everything asked of them this year, and on time. Only the lag in scoring the extra essays tripped them up.

“You run into that with every senior class,” said Thomas Huffman, Washougal board member for 17 years. “Some of them think that they can wait until the last minute to do things.

“We’re trying to turn out the best possible students,” Huffman continued. “This just holds the bar up there, and if they can’t quite reach it, then that’s something they have to deal with.”

It was bitter news, especially for Jessica.

An outgoing blonde who hopes to attend beauty school, she admits coasting until senior year. She entered 2.5 credits behind schedule. But she bucked up: All year, she came early in the morning for credit recovery work at the alternative Excelsior High School next-door. After school, she would return for more, quitting her burger-shop job to make time.

By year’s end, she caught up on credits and completed her senior project and a state-required personal plan for her future, only to get hung up on one section of the WASL.

“It just frustrates me so much,” Jessica said. “I cried a lot that day.”

Others walk

Making matters worse, she and Peter said, was that school officials told them other Clark County districts were treating seniors-in-WASL-limbo in similar fashion.

But in La Center, Ridgefield and Hockinson, school boards chose to cut the class of 2008 some slack. They adopted waivers for a handful of students who fell in the WASL crunch.

“It’s not so much rewarding them, as recognizing the efforts,” said Art Edgerly, Ridgefield superintendent.

That outlook has long held sway in the much larger Evergreen, Vancouver and Battle Ground districts.

Evergreen and Vancouver have allowed seniors within a half-credit of the four-year total needed to walk with classmates, so long as they’re on track to wrap up loose ends, such as completing one more summer class, even one more August WASL retry.

Those districts chose to give this year’s seniors grappling with new WASL standards the same break.

“When they’ve come that far … we do want to support them getting there,” said Joan Skelton, Evergreen school board president. The ceremony does not diminish the actual diploma, she said. “The important piece here is that we’re not lowering the academic standard. It’s helping them with the timeline a little bit.”

Evergreen officials said the number of lagging seniors who walked in graduation wasn’t much higher than in any other year.

In Olympia, there are no plans to speed up the WASL alternative process, a spokesman said. There’s no sign that vast numbers of seniors landed in the same boat. The state doesn’t concern itself with commencement rules, set by local school boards, only the final diploma standards.

Neither Peter or Jessica had the stomach to attend the Washougal 2008 graduation without the company of the other. But they did go together and were given two seats up front in the audience.

“This is my class. It’s the only time to see them when they graduate,” Peter explained.

Both students were allowed to join the seniors’ chaperoned graduation party. They said it was fun. But the commencement packed a strong, unexpected punch. One by one, passing grads walked over to embrace Jessica and Peter, a poignant show of solidarity.

Classmates told them they were proud of them, even those students who they barely knew, they said.

“I was just bawling. It touched me,” Jessica said. “It made me feel great, that people I didn’t even know cared so much.”

Howard Buck covers schools and education. He can be reached at 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.

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