With only one semester left, many Neuqua Valley seniors undoubtedly have graduation on their minds. However, with the graduating class of 2009 as the largest student body so far, the distribution of graduation tickets has become an important topic of discussion. Since 2009′s graduating class is larger than last year’s, seniors will now each be guaranteed three graduation tickets as opposed to four. While other schools like Waubonsie Valley are still be guaranteed four tickets per student, that idea is no longer plausible for Neuqua. Five hundred tickets have already been given away in a lottery, and the winners of those tickets are already displayed on the Neuqua Valley home website. Considering that there will be about 1,130 high school graduates, this should mean that about half the senior class will be given four graduation tickets, while the other half will only have three.
However, there is still another chance for more ticket distribution. By February 1st, students will need to give a definite answer as to whether they will attend the graduation ceremony or not. Depending on how many students choose not to attend, there may be another lottery in which one hundred to two-hundred tickets will be distributed. The idea of a ticket lottery was developed so that the distribution is fair and unbiased. “We don’t take circumstances into account,” Vice Principal Lance Fuhrer said. “There are so many different kinds of family situations.”
Although the list of students that will receive an additional graduation ticket is on Neuqua Valley’s website, most of the circumstances involving the graduation ceremony are beyond the school’s jurisdiction. It is the school district’s responsibility to decide the where the graduation ceremonies will take place and how much will be charged for the tickets. The district considered having Neuqua’s graduation ceremony in Northern Illinois or downtown Chicago because more tickets could be available to students. However, this would have required family members to pay money for the tickets, and the district decided that they wanted to keep the graduation tickets free. As a result, students may be forced to limit the number of family members that will be able to attend the event.
In previous years, students who have been selected to receive an additional ticket, but do not need it have been asked to offer it to the class house so that someone else can have it. However, in the past, students have chosen to make an “unofficial trade” of tickets amongst themselves, and the school administrators are expecting this trade to happen once again. “It was never an issue finding tickets,” said Mary Jane Dennison, a 2004 high school graduate. “If you needed one you could get one. It was easy, because people have extras.” “But that was four years ago, when the class was two hundred less students.”
Limited ticket distribution for Neuqua seniors has also raised concerns amongst the underclassmen. For the upcoming years, three tickets will still be guaranteed to students, but the number of tickets given away in the lotteries will reduce. For the time being, it seems that the graduation ceremony will be another instance in which family members will be able to understand the seriousness of Neuqua Valley’s overcrowding problems.
By Negin Mashaiee, opnions editor
