A high school in Texas was forced to postpone graduation after only five students met the state-mandated graduation requirements.
The Marlin Independent School District broke the news on Facebook last week that only five of the 33 seniors from Marlin High School are eligible to graduate, forcing the small, rural high school to postpone graduation ceremonies.
“Marlin High School has announced that high school graduation will be rescheduled for June,” the school district wrote in a letter.. “The decision by the high school to postpone graduation will provide more time for students to meet necessary requirements for graduation.”
According to the Waco Tribune-Herald, an additional 12 Marlin seniors became eligible since the announcement of the delayed graduation, thanks to district superintendent Daryl Henson’s efforts to give the failing students numerous opportunities to complete their classroom work.
“Everything that we have done and will continue to do for the foreseeable future will always be for the benefit of our children,” Henson said. “So I’d rather have the emotions now. I want to have everyone be upset now. Instead of us calling you back in here in October or November or January of 2024 and telling you that your diploma is not worth the paper that is printed on.”
Students must have earned all of the state-mandated course credits, passed all final exams, and maintained a minimum attendance rate of 90 percent in order to graduate.
A discussion was held last Wednesday explaining what students and parents could do to graduate. Henson emphasized the importance of the situation to the many parents who were disappointed that their child would not be graduating.
“The state of Texas has guidelines for graduation,” Henson said at the meeting. “This is not a dance floor. … It’s not a homecoming pep rally. This is graduation.”
The parents, meanwhile, commented that phone calls were not the best way of notifying families of their student’s eligibility, given the community’s weak telephone connection.
“Marlin is a unique community, as you all should know by now,” one parent said. “Phone numbers don’t work all the time, so y’all are gonna have to come up with some other solution. And my suggestion for the solution is to do maybe house calls for the numbers parents don’t answer to. Whatever you need to do, but the phone system does not work here like it does in a city.”
