Free at last: high school seniors cast off shackles

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

By Sam Petri

In the next two weeks, all five Teton County high schools will hold matriculation ceremonies. Each school will celebrate its students’ success in its own style, large and small. The following describes how these institutions are commending their students and sending them off into – gasp! – the real world. 

C-Bar-V Ranch graduates its seniors with a 1 p.m. ceremony today in its gym just off the Village Road. Of the 47 full-time students who attend C-Bar-V, six will be graduating – four with a high school diploma, two with a certificate of completion of their Individual Education Plans. C-Bar-V Ranch is the Region 5 BOCES residential K-12 school for youngsters with differing abilities and disabilities.

“We feel like we’ve raised them, so to speak,” said Principal Patty Talley, “and now they’re leaving.”

Each graduating student will speak at the event with the assistance of his or her therapists and teachers. 

On Friday, the Jackson Community School will toast its inaugural matriculating class. Eight students will receive diplomas on the field just west of the school building on High School Road. Screenwriter Bill Broyles – who wrote “Apollo 13,” “Cast Away” and “Flags of Our Fathers” – will speak at the very personal graduation that is open to the public and starts at 6 p.m..

All eight graduating students will be attending four-year colleges. “We’re really excited for them,” said Head of School Development Scott Hirschfield. “They are all very dedicated students.”

Also on Friday, Summit High School will graduate 20 seniors at the Center for the Arts. The alternative high school’s personalized matriculation ceremony starts at 4 p.m. with a reception to follow shortly after. As the students receive their diplomas, teachers will speak about each student and personally hand him or her a diploma. Somehow the ceremony wraps up in one hour.

“We pride ourselves on our one-hour ceremony,” said Principal Jim Rooks.  
Summit students selected Schools to Careers Coordinator Les Bishop to speak at their ceremony. Seniors also will select a teacher to receive an award for New Initiatives in Public Education – essentially a Teacher of the Year award. Said lucky teacher will receive a $500 check.

The largest graduating class is, of course, Jackson Hole High School. Depending on how final exams go, 162 students will walk on at 11 a.m. on Saturday in the school gymnasium. The ceremony will be concise – just one hour and 15 minutes – leaving families plenty of time to have a celebratory lunch in the afternoon.

Students selected long time speech and English teacher Chuck Herro to speak at the graduation. Six students with the highest grade point average will also speak.  Entertainment will include a performance by seven graduating young women members of the choir, who will sing a song from the film “Dream Girls;” a quartet of senior orchestra members; and a five-minute video tribute to be shown towards the end of graduation.

Seniors will then party the night away at the Rec Center, from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.
Finally, at 5:30 p.m. on June 13, the Teton Science Schools’ Journeys School will graduate its three high school seniors on the playing fields of its Jackson Campus.

Mark Houser, the speech and debate coach for Jackson Hole High School, will speak at the graduation. All three seniors will also speak and present their class gift to the school.

Seniors at the school were required to write a thesis and obtain an internship to graduate. All three students will be attending four-year colleges.

“They’re self-driven,” said Head of School Nate McClennen.

Photo By Andrew Wyatt 2005
With a toss of the mortarboard, Jackson high school students are off into the real world.



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Free at last: high school seniors cast off shackles | Planet JH News Article: Jackson Hole High School

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