GRADUATION POLICY

Cape Girardeau residents needn't look beyond their own school district to find a microcosm of big government bureaucracy at work.

It was last May a firestorm of controversy was ignited with the district's decision to allow some seniors at Cape Girardeau Central High School to participate in commencement ceremonies although the students had failed to meet graduation requirements.

Then-principal Dan Milligan was so irked by the change he left school and didn't return. Many district patrons sided with Milligan and voiced their displeasure with Superintendent Neyland Clark and the school board.

The high school's response was to form a committee of 19 teachers and students -- according to new principal Dan Tallent, no parents volunteered to serve on the committee -- to draft new commencement policies.

The committee, which began meeting three months ago, will make a first-draft recommendation. That recommendation then will be examined by a 23-member parent advisory committee, the 14 members of the faculty advisory committee and 27 members of the student advisory committee. Suggestions then will go to the school board for public input.

Tallent says that in the past, there were only traditional graduation procedures -- nothing written down for parents and school officials -- to go by.

But there wasn't a problem with commencement procedures until last year's controversial decision. Not to take away from the well-intentioned committee members, but why don't the superintendent and school board members simply resort to the traditional, albeit unwritten, procedures of the past?

Tallent said recently that the district is "going about this in a very judicious manner." But judiciousness was needed nine months ago. If a written policy is imperative, it shouldn't take committees and nine months of deliberations to document long-standing guidelines.