Complaints over religious symbols kicked up last year around graduation venues in Montgomery County have been replaced by money concerns this year as parents and school officials focus more acutely on the district’s extra-tight budget.
Few complaints have been made of Clarksburg High School’s decision to host ceremonies at Mount St. Mary’s University, a Catholic institution in Emmitsburg, despite threats of a lawsuit against the district last year for allowing graduations to take place at Jericho City of Praise church in Hyattsville.
“The overriding principle is whether the setting is religious or neutral,” said Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a group that threatened to sue the district in 2007 because of Jericho’s abundance of Christian symbols.
Because Clarksburg’s graduation will be held in the field house, county officials feel the setting will be sufficiently neutral.
Of greater concern is cost: Mount St. Mary’s charges only $3,000 for use of its facilities, said Patricia Wade, graduation coordinator for the
district.
That compares with $137,000 to be spent bythe district to host three of its largest graduations at the University of Maryland’s Comcast Center. A total of 31 graduations funded by the county will cost about $233,000 overall, Wade said, indicating the three largest graduating classes will account for nearly 60 percent of the graduation venue budget.
“It hurts to see they’re spending this money, but it was a decision made by [Superintendent Jerry] Weast” for the sake of avoiding a lawsuit, said David Ottalini, co-president of Montgomery Blair High School’s PTA. Blair was one of the schools forced out of Jericho City of Praise.
“I’d go back to Jericho in a second,” Ottalini said, adding the church charged nothing for use of the facility but was given a nominal fee contributed by all schools to the cost of hosting graduation.
Most schools in the county choose Constitution Hall in downtown D.C., expected to cost about $5,700 per school.
Comcast Center, which charges $51,000 for one graduation, offers reduced rates if two or three are scheduled. Blair’s graduation is at Comcast on June 11. Magruder and Sherwood high schools will host theirs on June 6.
