Petition Created to Bring Back Yorkville Middle School Graduation

If you’re a parent of an eighth-grade Yorkville Middle School student, you might want to take some photos of your child before he or she heads to their last day of school because you won’t be able to do so during a graduation ceremony. There won’t be one and some parents aren’t happy about that.

A petition created by Theresa Crosby of Yorkville is asking the school district to bring back the graduation ceremony.

According to the petition, when it was brought to the attention of Yorkville Middle School Principal Lisa Adler she “said this petition means nothing to her and she accused us of faking all of the signatures on this petition,” the petition states.

A phone call to Adler seeking comment was not immediately returned. The petition currently has 282 signatures.

The petition also states that one of the reasons the graduation ceremony was canceled was due to safety and parking concerns, but according to Yorkville Community Unit School District 115 spokesperson Megan Jacobs, that wasn’t the issue.

“To my knowledge that’s not true,” Jacobs said. “That’s not the district’s statement on this issue.”

Yorkville resident Nanci Gilstrap commented on the petition page that when her son was in eighth grade there was a ceremony, but now that her daughter is in eighth grade they won’t have one.

“I think they should bring it back for the kids,” Gilstrap wrote. “Our daughter says she never voted on having a graduation or not.”

The decision to cancel the Yorkville Middle School eighth-grade graduation was actually made in 2014. According to a release from Yorkville Community Unit School District 115, the decision was not “made lightly, and came only after soliciting input from numerous parents, teachers, students and area schools.”

Adler conducted a survey of local middle schools whose enrollment was comparable to that of Yorkville Middle School. The survey found that schools with an enrollment between 380 and 500 eighth-grade students all conducted celebrations during the school day.

Yorkville Middle School has more than 420 students in its eighth-grade class.

Despite there not being a graduation ceremony, there will be an eighth-grade celebration that will take place during the school day Tuesday, June 16.

“(It) will include presentations of certificates of completion, a panel of Yorkville High School students who will share their experiences with the eighth-graders and the creation of a class legacy art project,” the release states. “Finally, eighth-graders will join seventh-graders for a school-wide celebration to acknowledge individual students in front of their classmates and teacher.”

Parents are not allowed to attend this in-school celebration, according to Jacobs.

While students from the 2014 Yorkville Middle School graduating class were asked their opinion, the 2015 class was not asked, according to Jacobs.

Due to the concern of parents who’d like to see their student graduate, Jacobs said the issue is under evaluation again as to what the school will do moving forward, but nothing will be changed for this year.