Trustees reject Senior Project plan Trustees reject Senior Project plan (February 03, 2006)

Hundreds send e-mails, jam board hearing room to protest
by Jeb Bing

A controversial plan to require students to complete a "senior project" for high school graduation, starting with the class of 2010, was scuttled by the Pleasanton school board Tuesday after the teachers union and hundreds of students and parents protested.

At the end of a four and a half hour meeting, most of it devoted to hearing from more than 40 parents and students, the school board voted unanimously to rescind the Senior Project requirement. Although some suggested offering the program as an elective, board members said the message from the community was "loud and clear" and decided against revising the plan in any form.

The proposed Senior Project would have required students to spend about 25 hours during their senior year in writing, learning and action projects to prepare them for "real life" work and living situations beyond high school and college. These might include internships, community service, political investigations or even choreographing a dance routine.

Foothill High School senior Duntin Granum told the board that although he wouldn't be affected by the proposed requirement, he wouldn't have been able to fit another 25 hours of work into his already crowded schedule.

"I'm taking four advanced placement classes and have at least three hours of homework every night," he said. "I've played three varsity sports since my sophomore year, and those take another three hours, four hours on game nights. There would just be no room for something else."

Steve Kirch agreed. The father of a daughter who is a junior at Amador Valley High School, and another daughter in the sixth grade who would be faced with the new requirement, he argued against adding a new requirement to an already heavy student workload.

"You say it would take 25 hours, but that would be more like 50 hours because I know my kids would want to do it right," he said. "That's just the way they are, and that's the kind of exceptional community we live in."

But Diane Howell, the district's Director of Secondary Education, said that similar Senior Project programs are being used in many parts of California and the country quite successfully.

"Other school districts have started these to give their students "'real world' as well as academic experiences," she said. "This program lets students pursue their passions and then apply them to the real world."

She said students could gain the needed credits as veterinary assistants, by participating in a political campaign, or teaching soccer to small children, to name a few alternatives.

Board members Kris Weaver and Pat Kernan said opposition to the project was coming from students and parents throughout the city.

"I have read every e-mail that’s come in, and re-read them," she said. "Some common themes were that this will be just one more requirement on a student's plate--causing too much stress, damaging family time."

Kernan said in his 10 years on the school board, he has never received so many e-mails objecting to a proposed program.

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