JPS policy prevents early graduate from participating in graduation ceremony

Burt Doyle possesses a diploma from Jamestown High School but not the memories of walking across the stage during the graduation ceremony.
A Jamestown Public School policy in its first year prohibits students who complete their classes at Jamestown North early from participating in high school graduation ceremonies.
Jamestown North is an alternative school designed to help students, who are in danger of dropping out, complete their education. North students take classes at their own pace and can complete their coursework before the end of the normal school year.
John Conway, assistant high school principal and coordinator at Jamestown North, said the new rule matches the policy in place for all Jamestown High School students.
Previously, North students had their own graduation ceremony each spring. For about the last seven years, they were included in the high school graduation ceremony no matter when in the school year they graduate. Conway said that policy changed a year ago and affected this year’s graduates.
“It changed so you had to be in full-time attendance at the time of graduation,” Conway said. “It was changed so it matches up with the policy of the high school. That is what we require of the students attending the high school.”
Jamestown High School Principal Bill Nold said the policy is common among schools.
“In order to participate in the ceremony, they need to be enrolled full time in the second semester of their senior year,” he said. “The reason to have the policy is to keep the kids in school.”
Nold said the only exception is for students who file an application for early graduation at the end of their junior year in high school.
Doyle started classes at Jamestown North in fall 2014 after a difficult junior year.
“I pretty much lost completely my motivation,” he said. “I went to North because I was behind.”
The loss of motivation came after the death of Doyle’s brother. His brother, Spc. Tom Doyle, died Sept. 7, 2013, from “suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder,” said their mother, Beth Doyle-Lautt.
Doyle-Lautt said her two sons were close.
“Burt and his brother, Tom, share a birthday,” she said. “Tom gave him his love of mechanics.”
After failing many of his junior year classes, Doyle started the 2014-2015 school year at Jamestown North with about two years of coursework necessary to earn a diploma.
“He stuck to the schedule and graduated early,” Doyle-Lautt said, “and he was punished for it.”
Doyle called Jamestown North an excellent program, but at times, he said the students there were “made to feel like outcasts.”
Conway said the school tries to make sure all students in the Jamestown Public Schools system are treated the same.
“We go above and beyond in attempting to treat students at North the same as the regular high school,” he said. “There is some stigma (attached to students at North), but it is from people who don’t know what it’s about. In the past, there was a lot of stigma on it.”
Conway said most people recognize the Jamestown North program as a needed opportunity for students at risk.
Doyle said he completed the classes required to earn a diploma in April. The next day he began working full time at Stutsman Harley-Davidson.
Conway said Doyle was offered the opportunity to take additional classes through the end of the school year but he declined. Doyle would have been required to be in class six hours per day to maintain full-time enrollment status.
Doyle’s graduation picture was not included in a recent section of The Jamestown Sun saluting area high school graduates. His photo was included in the digital files the school provided to The Sun, but his name was not on a tentative graduation list the school furnished.
“Not walking (across the graduation stage) is one thing,” Doyle said. “Not being in the paper is another.”
Conway said this was likely an oversight.
“There is no school policy regarding (graduation) pictures in the paper or in the yearbook,” he said.
Roger Haut, president of the Jamestown Public School Board, said the entire issue could have been avoided.
“There should have been some communication in this case,” he said.
Doyle-Lautt said the experience has left her son with a bad feeling about his educational experience.
“These are memories you cherish down the road,” she said. “When he is 30 and looks back, he won’t look back fondly.”
Doyle said he is not looking for sympathy.
“I want to see the North kids treated like the kids at the high school,” he said. “North has no recognition.”
He also said he would like to see his graduation picture in the paper.
Doyle is planning a career in auto mechanics.
Sun reporter Keith Norman can be reached at 701-952-8452 or by email at knorman@jamestownsun.com