Seniors Hold Graduation After Board Cancels Ceremony
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Centerburg High School Graduation Cancelled
A cancelled graduation leads to a new graduation in the park.
NBC 4
Local seniors hold their own commencement after their school board canceled the district graduation ceremony.
CENTERBURG, Ohio—Local seniors held their own commencement after their school board canceled the district graduation ceremony.
NBC 4 reported with a FOLLOW-UP Sunday.
The board said it canceled the graduation because of suspected cheating and the fact that students knew about the suspected cheating but didn’t tell anyone with authority.
Families and friends of Centerburg High School seniors hosted a ceremony at Memorial Park Saturday afternoon.
Centerburg seniors marched from the high school to the park and graduated in front of their friends and family.
“There’s so many people here supporting us. And you know nobody really knows what happened or anything like that, but despite that, everybody still came here to support everybody,” senior Carly Szilagy said.
The impromptu ceremony was put together in about 24 hours.
Although many students and parents disagreed with the decision, the school board said it wanted to make it clear to students, parents and the community that cheating wouldn’t be tolerated.
The principal said he believes about 75 percent of the senior class knew about the computer hacking but didn’t say anything.
Parents and students, though, said it was only a handful of students – perhaps seven.
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Reader Reactions
I agree that the school board’s action were too late - the proper thing would have been to cancel the event in advance and once an investigation was completed, reschedule the event and omit the students from the ceremony who were involved in the cheating – however, the end result would have probably been the same - everyone crying foul that someone wasn’t allow to participate.
The sad thing is that two very important morals in our society - integrity and honesty are slowly being replaced by the “Don’t snitch on anyone” and “Let’s see if I can get something for nothing” mind set. The members of this class who knew of the cheating and didn’t say anything ARE just as guilty as the ones who did cheat. If any of them take pride in hiding the fact that one of their friends cheated , helped others to cheat, or think it’s not that big of a deal - is a sad statement for our society and these students. Even more disturbing is the fact that the honest students would even allow the cheaters to walk the same stage with them speaks volumes as well.
If just one student had stepped forward when these incidents first happened or became known– this entire episode could have been avoided – but their total disregard for honesty and integrity has left a cloud hanging over this entire graduating class. There is an important lesson that can be learned from all of this – Life is not fair and you have to be accountable for your own actions and who you associate with. If you chose to do things that are dishonest or associate yourself with people who do, eventually you or they will be exposed. The consequences can be harsh – this is the REAL world.
I agree with CatinttheHat: it looks like the cheaters won. I’ve heard it said that cheaters never prosper, but apparently in C-burg they do!
Unfortunately I’ve also heard that family members of the school board are being verbally abused in town. Real classy!
It is unfortunate the cheaters won.
Congratulations Centerburg Seniors !!!
And Well Done to the Parents who “Did The Right Thing” and put together their own version of a Ceremony at the last minute.
I think the Seniors will remember this moreso than what their average Ceremony would’ve been.
Also…IMO…the “Entire” School Board should be removed from their positions ASAP for this kind of a “Revenge Tactic”.
Real nice “Leadership”...huh ???
They knew about this in January and purposely waited till the day before Graduation to “Punish” “ALL” of the Students instead of just the guilty ones.
It still amazes me that the Schools belief about Punishing ALL for the stupid mistakes of the few still occurs in todays world.
Which is why the “Entire” School Board needs to be removed !!! Using the same logic that they just did.
Punish “ALL” of the Board members even if there were any who were against this kind of a “Revenge Tactic”.
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