A small, rural high school in Texas has postponed graduation ceremonies after only five of the 33 seniors eligible met the state-mandated graduation requirements.
“Marlin High School has announced that high school graduation will be rescheduled for June,” the Marlin Independent School District said in a letter posted on Facebook. “The decision by the high school to postpone graduation will provide more time for students to meet necessary requirements for graduation.”
The district superintendent Daryl Henson did all he could, giving the failing students numerous opportunities to complete their classroom work. According to this story in the Waco Tribune-Herald, an additional 12 Marlin seniors became eligible since the announcement of the delayed graduation.
“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.”
In order to graduate, students must have completed all the state-mandated class credits, passed all end-of-course exams and have had at least 90% attendance per class period.
Last Wednesday, a meeting was held explaining what happened and what students and parents could do to graduate. Many parents were upset their child would not be graduating, and Henson reminded them of what was at stake.
“The state of Texas has guidelines for graduation,” Henson said at the Wednesday meeting. “This is not a dance floor. … It’s not a homecoming pep rally. This is graduation.”
Concerns of the parents, grandparents and students in attendance included not being adequately notified of ineligibility, changes in policy throughout the year, course credits not counting toward graduation and discrepancies in communication from administrators. A few seniors who spoke said they feel their class is not a priority for the district.
A few parents commented that phone calls were not the best way of notifying families of their student’s eligibility.
“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.”
Henson said the issue should have been flagged last August before the term started. That it wasn’t doesn’t reflect well on him.
Marlin Schools were placed under state control in 2017 because so many students were failing.
The Texas Education Agency took over Marlin ISD in early 2017, installing an appointed board of managers in place of the district’s elected board. The move followed five years of failing state academic standards. The district learned last summer it had passed state accountability ratings for the first time in more than a decade.
Henson started at the district in May 2020. He said Wednesday he is not planning on leaving anytime soon.
It doesn’t sound like the district is ready to become independent of state control anytime soon. In fact, it doesn’t appear at this distance that anyone in the district — supervisors, students, parents, or teachers — cares enough about education to change the horrible performance of Marlin Schools and give children a fighting chance to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty they’re currently in.
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