By Ethan Walshe
Editor-in-Chief
Genevieve Johnson has made the decision at the age of 94 to finally finish high school. She chose to drop out of Westford Academy in 1936 to get a job at the Abbot Mills to assist her family during the Great Depression. She has and will continue to be attending classes at WA.
However, she will not be receiving a diploma when it’s all over.
Johnson will instead be receiving a Certificate of Attendance, according to Principal Jim Antonelli. This is because the standards for graduation from high school have changed significantly since 1936. According to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, in order to graduate from high school a student must receive a score of at least 240 on the sophomore year Math and English Language Arts MCAS. A student must also receive a score of at least 220 on an MCAS Science assessment, which is biology at WA.
Johnson will not be taking the MCAS, thus making her incapable of receiving a high school diploma. It is of course wholly unreasonable to sit anyone down for over five days of consecutive testing that are normally spaced out over the course of a year.
But this begs the more important question: is it reasonable not to allow Johnson to receive a high school diploma because she does not meet our current graduation requirements?
I contend that it is not.
To me, it makes little sense to hold a woman who attended high school under very different circumstances to the current standards that WA has in the year 2014. While it would be difficult to enforce the graduation requirements set forth in 1936, it strikes me that these are the standards this woman should be held to as they were what she was held to when she was actually in high school. She only needs 2.5 credits to receive her certificate, which indicates that she was very close to completion 78 years ago, set to complete high school early at the age of 16.
Additionally, there are other channels one can go through to receive a high school diploma. According to Section 4 of Chapter 71 of Massachusetts General Laws “school committees may award diplomas to any World War II veteran, Korean War veteran or Vietnam War veteran who is a resident of the commonwealth, who attended the high school maintained by the school committee, who withdrew from secondary school before graduation in order to serve in the armed forces of the United States.”
While Johnson’s withdrawal from high school was not for military service – the United States was not involved in any wars in 1936 – it was to assist her family during a time of need. It can certainly be argued that her contribution to her struggling family is comparable to military service.
There is in fact some precedence in this case. Just this school year, a 101 year old woman from Woburn received her diploma after she dropped out of high school in 1930 to assist her family during the Great Depression, according to Woburn Memorial High School. So why should Tina Lancelota be privy to this agreement and not Genevieve Johnson?
I do not blame Johnson nor WA administration for choosing not to pursue an appeal to the state. Something of that nature can turn into a bureaucratic nightmare quickly. But it seems to me an injustice that this woman is willing to return to high school classes as a 94 year old and will not reap the benefit of an actual diploma.
It of course should be addressed that Johnson is fully aware that she will not be receiving a diploma. She has accepted these terms and has elected not to appeal the state policy. I can only commend her for her resolve after all of these years. After all, at this stage receiving anything from WA, be it a certificate of attendance or a diploma, is a symbolic gesture. But it stands for her achievement after so much time and if Ms. Johnson is happy, so am I.