Mandatory Senior Projects Rejected

Though school leaders have pushed for years to require high school students to complete a senior project before commencement, the school board has a produced an alternate plan.

Some school board trustees think a comprehensive project may interfere with the students’ regular studies. Other say things like oral presentations in front of community leaders would be impractical.

So trustees decided last week to pursue an alternative that would emphasize various parts of a senior project, but would be completed as part of students’ normal classes.

“You can’t even call it a senior project,” said trustee Janice DiFatta.

The current plan is to formalize an 11th-grade research paper and require that students learn to write five-point essays on specific topics, much more watered-down from what a senior project would look like.

Other board members haven’t completely given up on the idea. Caesar Julian cited articles he has read that show high school seniors think they don’t accomplish anything significant during senior year.

Trustee Diane Collins agrees. At a board meeting last week she criticized her colleagues for not pursuing the concept more vigorously. “How many seniors are going to go through their senior years while we analyze this program?” she asked.