MASSENA — The Massena Central School District’s Policy Committee will be reviewing the school’s dress code policy for graduation to address a concern about what is considered an acceptable cord or stole worn by students.
Policy Committee Chairman Paul Haggett told school board members Thursday that the issue was whether cords and stoles should be reserved for academic honors or also be allowed for other activities and distinctions that weren’t necessarily academic in nature.
The current district policy regarding the student dress code says, “All students participating in the commencement ceremony shall be dressed in the standard cap and gown; however, Native American students may have a choice of wearing either the standard cap and gown or their ‘traditional native ceremonial dress’ upon approval by the building principal.”
Mr. Haggett said the current policy isn’t clear on the definition of an honor — if it’s strictly academic or if it includes other curricular honors. If the policy was changed to include strictly academic honors, six current groups would no longer be able to wear cords at graduation.
Superintendent Patrick Brady said some cords or stoles may represent heritage, while others are for academic honors such as National Honor Society or Spanish Honor Society.
However, he said, other graduates wear cords that are not academic in nature. They include the Link Crew mentoring program at the high school and Drama Club, where students make a commitment to that particular program.
In addition, some cords are given out for military service.
“Those aren’t academic,” Mr. Brady said.
Mr. Haggett wondered, if they restricted cords and stoles to academic honors only, would that eliminate the cord given for military service that’s worn on the shoulder. Mr. Brady said his opinion is that those would no longer be eligible to be worn.
The issue was raised by board member Kevin Perretta, who suggested that the cords and stoles should be reserved for academic honors.
“We have an honors banquet. You’ve got individual sporting banquets for individual sports and commitment to that sport and that program for a certain number of years. They’re all appropriate to that venue. To me, graduation was academic and it was starting to water down what we were recognizing there. The things I was seeing are not academic. They can’t be proven back to a GPA (grade point average),” he said.
“I’ve gone to most graduations since I’ve been here and I’ve seen the changes as they’ve happened. It was very arbitrary how it was handed out. That’s why I wanted to see some kind of control of it,” Mr. Perretta said. “I want to be very clear. I’m not even remotely attempting to take away from what the kids do. I don’t want this to be about that. It’s only about control at the ceremony. I’m not trying to minimize one program or maximize one program. I just want to see standardization. A lot of what was creeping into graduation could have been handled at the honors banquet. It was starting to float all over.”
Board President Patrick Bronchetti said he was “in the middle somewhere.” For instance, he said, he would not want to take a cord away from students who volunteered to serve on the Link Crew, mentoring freshmen during their initial year in the high school.
“I think the leadership that the kids get from that is a worthy acknowledgement,” he said. “Link Crew is an embodiment of the whole school body. To me, it’s more than football, it’s more than hockey.”
Mr. Perretta said that theory could also be applied in other situations.
“If you look at the leadership of the captain of a team, maybe they should get one from what you’re defining,” he said.
He said, for every reason they had to recognize a student, “I can come up with another reason for why someone’s left out.”
He suggested leadership would also mean they should recognize individuals like class presidents and vice presidents.
“Is that not major leadership of that student body?” Mr. Perretta asked.
Mr. Haggett asked high school Principal Sarah Boyce if other students, such as those in leadership positions, were requesting to wear cords or stoles. Ms. Boyce said they were not.
“I just don’t think we have a problem. We don’t have a situation where a bunch or students or school faculty advisers are saying, ‘Hey, my group deserves a stole, too. My group deserves a cord, too.’ I think we could probably flesh out the language a little bit more in the policy. But I don’t think we have a problem, so I don’t think we need to worry about leaving a bunch of kids out,” Mr. Haggett said.
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