Why it’s time to rethink making all high schoolers pay graduation fees
Disabled parents. Out-of-work parents. Homeless parents. The requests for help received by a Northern Virginia nonprofit organization in recent weeks describe different family situations. But they all share this: They were written on behalf of students who live in a wealthy D.C. suburb and worry they won’t get to walk across the stage because they can’t afford to pay their graduation fees.
I have told you about Alice’s Kids in previous columns. The requests the organization receives come from teachers, social workers and counselors who see up close what students need and hope to get funding for those items. The organization usually provides gift cards to prevent those students from ever knowing they received charity and to allow the adults in their lives to be the heroes.
I sent a request for comment to the school system but at the time of publication had not received one. The reality, though, is that this issue goes beyond one place. While the conversation has involved Fairfax in recent weeks, the concerns that have been raised should cause us to question and rethink how graduation fees are handled by school systems across the country.
Fitzsimmons expressed a similar hope. He said the system is set up in a way that creates a “kind of quiet, subtle pressure that is put on kids” and “shames” those who can’t pay. He said he hopes to continue discussions with officials locally and nationally to change that, whether that means finding a benefactor to cover those costs or encouraging school systems to build the funding into their budgets.
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