:The Laurel Outlook:News

Laurel School Superintendent Josh Middleton will bring a policy change recommendation to the Laurel School Board at its April 14 meeting that could result in Kati Wetch being allowed to sit with her classmates during high school graduation next month.

The Laurel School Board agenda for that meeting, published in this issue of the Laurel Outlook, lists under Items for Action, Revised Policy Recommendations. Tuesday afternoon Middleton said he is drafting a recommendation for the board's consideration that would revise Board Policy 2416 (Participation in Commencement Exercises) and allow Kati Wetch to be seated with her classmates during graduation.

Wetch won't be graduating and receiving a diploma with the rest of the Class of 2008. She has Chiari Malformation and has not completed the requirements for graduation. Granting her request would violate the current Board Policy 2416 (Participation in Commencement Exercises) requiring that only students who have completed the requirements for graduation may to be seated with the graduates on the floor. That policy makes the point that participation in graduation is an “earned right.”

As a result of her illness, she hasn't been able to attend classes regularly and she fell behind the rest of her class. Before that, she was an honor student and participated in athletics.

She has only earned four credits since she entered high school and was diagnosed with Chiari. Kati Wetch and her mom, Christina, requested accommodations to her Individual Education Plan (IEP) last summer, in hopes she would be able to earn the credits she needed to get a diploma.

She hasn't met the requirements of the revisions to her IEP. “They've (IEP team) been great. They made accommodations to my plan to help me. I'm just not able to meet them,” Kati Wetch said.

Last month she was notified by Superintendent Middleton that she could not sit with her classmates during graduation, because it would violate district policy. She came to the last board meeting March 26 with her mom and other supporters and made the case for letting her join her classmates during graduation.

“I just want to sit with my classmates during graduation,” she told the board at that meeting.

Wetch's request was backed up by LHS student body President Jess Bauer. “She deserves to be with us,” he told the board.

“Kati is not asking to receive a diploma, she just wants to be able to be in attendance (with her classmates) and celebrate the occasion with them,” Christine Wetch told the board at that meeting.

Middleton e-mailed Christina Wetch this week advising her that he would make a recommendation to revise district policy that would accomplish what she has requested. It goes further than her individual request and could result in any student in the fourth year of an IEP to participate in graduation with his or her class.

Middleton didn't have a final version of his recommendation available Tuesday. “It's still a work in progress,” he said. He has been researching what has been done in other states to address this type of situation.

He said his policy revision recommendation is being reviewed by the school district's legal counsel.

Petitions in support of Wetch's request have been placed at 10 Laurel businesses by a Laurel woman, Kathy Alford. Laurel High School students have also circulated petitions at the school supporting her request to join her classmates during graduation ceremonies May 25. The petitions will be submitted to the board at the April 14 meeting.

Chiari (kee-AR-ee) Malformation (CM) includes a complex group of disorders characterized by herniation of the cerebellum through the large opening in the base of the skull (foramen magnum) into the spinal canal. Symptoms usually do not appear until adolescence or early adulthood.