Texas high school delays graduation because only 5 seniors pass

Marlin (Texas) High School seniors have to wait another month to start after an audit found only five students were eligible to graduate.

The school district’s audit, conducted May 18, looked at the attendance, grades, and credits of 33 students in the school’s traditional curriculum; five students in an alternative education program were not audited.

Graduation was scheduled for Thursday, but Marlin Independent School District officials notified students and families last weekend of the delay. The high school is the only one in the neighborhood.

“They told us that because of the students who didn’t meet the requirements, it wouldn’t be fair for only five students to take the stage,” Alondra Alvarado, one of five seniors who met the requirements, told KWTX-TV, a Waco. CBS Affiliate.

The school and students will now try to qualify.

“We strongly believe that every Marlin ISD student can and will achieve their potential. We maintain high expectations, not as an imposition, but as evidence of faith in the abilities of our students. … Marlin ISD students will be held to the same high standard as any other student in Texas,” Marlin ISD Superintendent Darryl Henson said in a statement Wednesday.

Mr Henson said that, despite the dissatisfaction caused by the postponement of the graduation, he would rather postpone the event than inform students later that their diplomas are not valid.

As of Wednesday, 17 out of 38 students had taken the necessary steps to graduate. As of Thursday, that number had risen to 25 of the 38 total seniors at Marlin High School.

The new graduation date has not been set, but it will take place sometime after the summer school ends on June 22.

District officials will meet with parents over the next week to determine if their children need summer school to graduate, Henson told Temple NBC affiliate KCEN-TV.

In the meantime, the community held an impromptu ceremony Thursday in place of the graduation ceremony at Marlin Missionary Baptist Church.

Students wore graduation outfits and received certificates of achievement.

“We are a community that, in the face of adversity, comes together as a family. A grandmother came from Mexico to see her son graduate. And those are times that you have to cherish,” Brandolyn Jones, mother of a high school student from Marlin, told KWTX-TV.