The Student news source for West Shore Junior/Senior High School

The Roar

The Student news source for West Shore Junior/Senior High School

The Roar

The Student news source for West Shore Junior/Senior High School

The Roar

Graduation date moves to May 19

On Jan. 18, parents received a phone call from Assistant Principal Jim Melia announcing that this year’s graduation date was no longer May 20.

It was just before this announcement went out that Melia found out graduation dates for two schools had been scheduled on the same night, or at least he thought so.

“Early last May, I e-mailed the King Center requesting May 20, 2011 for our school’s graduation,” Melia said. “A lady wrote us down for that date and said if I didn’t hear from anyone that we were good and the date was ours.”

Three weeks ago, concern arose when Melia looked up his stepson’s Melbourne Central Catholic High School graduation date and realized it was May 20, 2011 at the King Center.

“I started panicking,” Melia said. “I tried to find a paper trail of the process to reserve the date. It turns out MCC reserved the date at the end of last May, and the scheduler for the King Center didn’t realize we had already applied for it, so MCC was handed the form for facility use, filled it out, and the date was theirs.”

Melia says he and Principal Rick Fleming have received phone calls from a couple people who are upset, but all they can do is apologize for the inconvenience. The two worked together to figure out a workable day for the ceremony, and settled on Thursday, May 19.

“We thought about asking MCC to move [their ceremony] from 6 p.m. to 5 p.m. and then we could have ours at 8 p.m., but then we figured getting all of the MCC people out and having West Shore people come in would be too much of a hassle,” Melia added. “We also talked about Saturday or Sunday afternoon, but many people may have vacations booked.”

According to Melia, the contract is signed with the King Center so the date will not change again.

“This is the first time this has happened, and it’s the last time it will happen,” Melia said. “I will wait in the lobby until the contract is prepared next time.”

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