Classes of 2010 and 2011 against the Graduation Project

In 2006 when the class of 2010 was notified of the graduation project there was an extremely negative response within the student body.

The graduation project is a time consuming task which students must complete in order to graduate high school. It consists of four major parts, a paper, presentation, product, and portfolio. This project is not incorporated into many high school’s demanding curriculums and is superfluous. This project takes a minimum of 30 hours.

If a student does not complete the project they are not allowed to graduate, unfortunately some students do not have the time or money to complete the project, increasing the dropout rate in North Carolina schools. By 2010 the dropout rate could increase greatly, depending on the outcome of the graduation project. No child’s future is worth betting on the outcome of a poorly planned project. The blame for this lack of preparation cannot fall on the schools themselves because the government, who was so quick to implement a project to try and “help” students, is now putting all of the responsibility on the separate schools to fit “their unique needs”: which can be translated as putting all of the burden on the schools while waiting until 2010 to assess the “success” of the project.

There are a fair amount of schools who already have a graduation project worked into the curriculum and have made the appropriate changes to fit in the extra work. Many schools, however, are having to scrap together a plan as the four years progress quickly for the class of 2010. At the very least, more time is needed for the schools to create a plan and structure for the project before it becomes a graduation requirement.

The schools that will benefit from this project already have a similar project in place, it should be the school’s decision whether to implement the project based on the schools unique needs. In order to help the student’s education process and prepare them for the “21st century workplace”, we, the classes of 2010 and 2011, believe that each public school in North Carolina should only implement the graduation project if a majority of the school’s teachers and administration think that it would be beneficial to the student body.