Fairfax County high schools with graduating seniors enlisting in the military soon may be required to recognize them at their graduation ceremonies, as school officials gear up to vote on a districtwide policy this week.
If the measure is passed, military-bound seniors would be the only students who must be honored at commencement, as Fairfax County Public Schools currently allows high schools to design most aspects of their ceremonies — even whether they want to recognize honors students.
School board members say they want to honor their students who have volunteered for military service. But many are unsure if it’s their right to tell schools — some who say their ceremonies are student-designed and highly individualized — how to run commencement.
“It is intrusive, honestly, for the school board to do this, but I think it’s for the right cause,” said Ted Velkoff, an at-large board member.
At a February work session, a divided school board voted 7-5 to strike down the proposal. Velkoff plans to introduce an amendment to the proposed policy before Thursday’s vote, specifying that high schools should use cords to recognize graduates who are enlisting, attending a military academy, or receiving an ROTC scholarship. Worn around students’ necks, cords in various colors are already often used to honor students with high GPAs or who are involved in extracurricular activities.
“That’s the question in front of the school board, should make we make them [honor these students] or let it be done in an individualized way … but this sort of sets a minimum, and doesn’t prohibit anything further,” Velkoff said.
No other Washington-area school districts have polices about recognizing graduates who enlist in the military. Montgomery County Public Schools allows schools to make that decision, but “in most — if not all — cases, our schools recognize those graduates entering the military in some manner during the ceremony,” spokesman Dana Tofig said.
Parents at Robinson Secondary School last year brought the issue to the school board after they sought recognition for 11 enlisting seniors at graduation and were turned down.
“It was the staff and administrators who chose to exclude them despite repeated requests and suggestions of simple, nondisruptive ways to do so,” Christiner Zinser said at a recent school board meeting.
Last year, 282 of the county’s seniors said they planned to join the military after graduation, 2.3 percent of all seniors surveyed by the Virginia Department of Education.
Holding a set of red, white and blue cords, Zinser told the board, “I will never be convinced that allowing seniors who enlist in the military to wear this cord at their graduation ceremony will in any way diminish the individuality or flavor of the ceremony.”
