Fewer than half of Kennedy HS seniors who took summer courses now cleared to graduate, board president says
Fewer than half of the 53 John F. Kennedy High Schools students who took summer classes in hopes of earning long-awaited diplomas have been cleared to earn them as of Friday, according to the board president of New Beginnings Schools foundation — the charter network that runs Kennedy.
“As of the close of business yesterday, 24 of the 53 students submitted to the Louisiana Department of Education on July 26th have been cleared for graduation and are able to retrieve their diplomas,” Raphael Gang wrote in an email sent Saturday morning. “We have reached out to our families who are cleared and continue to work closely with the [Louisiana Department of Education] for our students who have not yet been cleared.”
Those 53 students returned for classes this summer after myriad graduation problems surfaced amid a New Beginnings-commissioned investigation into alleged grade inflation at the Gentilly high school. The Orleans Parish school district and the Louisiana Department of Education also opened investigations into the school.
The students are part of a class of 177 seniors, about half of whom were found not to have met graduation criteria a month after their May graduation ceremony. Sixty-nine of the students who didn’t qualify had been allowed to walk at the ceremony, according to New Beginnings officials.
The charter network has not yet released the results of its own investigation. But the state found New Beginnings Schools Foundation, Kennedy’s charter operator, had misused credit recovery courses. Those courses are intended for students to retake a course they have failed, but Kennedy CONTINUE READING: Fewer than half of Kennedy HS seniors who took summer courses now cleared to graduate, board president says | The Lens
