Jonathan Law Seniors Petition to Have Graduation Date Changed

(Editor's Note: We first published this story earlier this week and here it is again in case you missed it.)

MILFORD, CT - On June 10, 2015 Jonathan Law High School students were mourning the sudden death of their friend, Laura Gonzalez.

Now students have circulated a petition urging Milford school officials to move the planned graduation date away from June 10, 2016 so they won’t have to graduate on the date their friend committed suicide, the petition reads.

The petition has nearly 900 signatures and was started by Katie Sabo, who is a senior at Jonathan Law High School.

According to the petition, Katie wrote,

"As of today, I am graduating on June 10th, 2016.

Her name was Laura Gonzalez. She would have been a senior at Jonathan Law High School. She killed herself on June 10th, 2015.

Laura was just as a part of the law community as any other student. She deserves more than a suicide walk that the majority of our class had no idea about. She deserves to be acknowledged with a day that belongs to her.

As a community, it’s embedded into us that we will stick together in the face of tragedy. Laura’s suicide was a tragedy, and she is not being acknowledged in the way the senior class deserves. My class, Laura’s class, was not even consulted when the day of graduation was set.

This is problem can be easily solved by switching the graduation dates. I am aware that the Milford Board of Education was not made aware that the date chosen for graduation was such a tragic one for every senior at Jonathan Law.

I am also aware that Foran and Jonathan Law switch dates every year as to who graduates first, but an exception should be made for the students at Law who are avidly against graduating on June 10th. I urge you to switch the date of graduation for every senior at Jonathan Law High School,” Katie’s letter reads.

Milford’s Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth Feser is out of the office this week and not available for comment, Fox 61 reports.

When Gonzalez died last year, Feser issued a statement on behalf of the school system:

In those June 11, 2015 remarks, Feser wrote:

Laura was a caring, kind, bright young woman with an ever-present smile. She was an honor student and an active member of the Law community.

A top student who ranked 5th in the Class of 2016, Laura was a member of the National Honor Society and a recent recipient of the Wellesley Book Award for excellence in the classroom and in personal achievement. She received multiple academic awards during the past three years at Jonathan Law, including the All School Academic Award in Journalism.

Laura was an active athlete while at Law as a member of the girls swim team, the girls lacrosse team, and the Law track team. She served as manager of the boys swim team.

Laura had a particular interest in serving her community having earned 207 service hours, by volunteering her time for many clubs and organizations over the past three years. Two major areas of her service included work with the Special Olympics and the Pulsera Project (an organization that raises money for students in Nicaragua).

Laura was a friend to anyone she encountered and possessed a quiet grace that drew people to her. She will be missed deeply…

The petition is available here on Change.org. There are several comments from Law students who are quite vocal and upset about the matter.