WJH board approves new graduation speaker requirements

Thomas Jefferson High School students with the best message to share with their peers will be selected to speak at graduation, beginning this year.

School board members on Feb. 25 in an 8-1 vote approved new criteria and procedures that will be used in determining who speaks at the ceremony. First Vice President Suzanne Downer dissented.

“We want the speeches to be more meaningful,” Superintendent Michael Ghilani said.

In the past, the top seven students in the graduating class automatically spoke at graduation around a chosen theme.

As TJ was moving into a new $95 million school this year, many programs were revamped.

Ghilani said district leaders couldn’t find a reason why the number seven was chosen for speakers.

In August, school board members agreed to change the way speakers are selected. However, they said at the time that they wanted written criteria drafted that would outline the speaker selection process.

That criteria was drafted over the past several months. Three speakers now will be chosen to speak at graduation. One of the speakers will be the senior class president, who is elected by their peers to the role. Another speaker will be selected out of students with an unweighted cumulative grade point average of 4.0. Students interested in speaking at graduation meeting these criteria can submit a speech that will be ranked against a rubric, judged by high school and district administrators. The third student to speak at graduation can be anyone.

Students will have their speeches ranked against the rubric by a high school speech reading committee, according to the new rules. The top five will be brought before the entire high school faculty that will select the speaker.

All speeches will be read without the students’ names attached, the rules state.

The rubric weighs speeches on how inspirational they are, if they will be embraced by the student body and how universal they are. Speeches also will be scored on their creativity, coherence and grammar/spelling.

District leaders want to work with students to help them prepare the best speech possible, Ghilani said. This work could be done during personalized learning time [PLT].

The goal is to make the process as inclusive as possible, the superintendent said.

“There may be someone who has overcome an obstacle, that has overcome many challenges that may have a meaningful message,” Ghilani said. “You can’t assume that the top seven kids with the best GPAs are going to have the most meaningful thing to say to their class. We want to give everyone a shot. I think that’s important.”

This year, the speeches likely will focus on the district’s core values. However, Ghilani said specific themes have not yet been selected.

Board members on Feb. 25 also approved the date for the Class of 2020 commencement ceremony, to be held on June 9 at 7 p.m. in the TJ stadium. In case of rain, the ceremony will be moved to the new high school gymnasium.