By Andrew Kelly
Special to the Herald

With the recent crop of school meetings last month pertaining to the pending graduation requirement shakeup, Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Charles Young and Benicia High School Principal Brianna Kleinschmidt have left Benicia High students with more questions than answers and failed to address their fears about one of the topic that will affect future classes for years to come. If anything, the undemocratic, obtuse meetings the school district have put on have made many students’ fears of losing their favorite elective worse, if anything.
One of the first things those of us attending noticed noticed about these meetings is how it seemed that they didn’t want students to come in the first place. The only announcement pertaining to the student conference said it would be from 7 to 8:30 without specifying a time od day. With me and a few other students having come to the school at that crack-of-dawn hour,  we were then informed by a fellow student that it was in fact taking place at 7 p.m., only hearing this on the loudspeaker at lunch. It would be ludicrous to assume that this was pre-planned on the part of BUSD, but one can’t help but think that making sure the concerns of the students were voiced ranked very low on the concerns of the BUSD staff if they couldn’t even be bothered to get the time right on the announcements.
Something else that has frustrated me about this whole grad requirement ordeal is that, on the totem pole of issues pertaining to BHS, I would say a shakeup of the grad requirements is very low. Our band and theater room is using audio visual equipment from the ’90s. Our baseball fields to right of campus, while recently being planted with new grass, still have rusty bleachers and sharp mesh borders that are a monumental cutting hazard. While Vice Principal Sean Thompson did his best to assure me that these issues were being looked into, the fact that the most pressing issue on the minds of the BUSD higher-ups is graduation requirements is mind-boggling, especially when you take into account the amount of appreciation BUSD would get from students, faculty, and parents alike if they updated the band room equipment or updated the baseball fields to modern safety standards.
But enough about that, let’s talk about the meetings themselves, if you could even call them that. The problem with these so-called “meetings” is that in both instances, we sat for over 30 minutes– or 50 in the case of the parent conference– looking at a Power Point while Dr. Young explained to us how our grad requirements were out of step with the UCs and CSUs. While I’m sure many a student, parent or even BUSD faculty member would have loved to explain that not every student wants to go to a four-year straight out of high school, we were barely given any time to voice our opinions and questions. In fact, in the conference meant for students and parents alike, they spent so much time glossing over the details of their Power Point that there was only about 10 or 15 minutes left in the allotted time for questions and concerns. Toward the end, Dr. Young and Principal Kleinschmidt even attempted to have parents go into the lobby, write their concerns onto a piece of paper and put it into a box and then leave. Overall, the reaction from students and parents alike wasn’t one of relief and content. It was one of doubt and pondering.
I’m not an elected BUSD Governing Board trustee. I’m not part of the BHS campus administration. I don’t even teach at a BUSD school. But I don’t need to be an employee of the district to look at the way they have conducted themselves and see that their plans for our school district isn’t in line with the hopes that the students, parents and teachers have for it.

Andrew Kelly is a senior at Benicia High School.

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