Dear Members of the Class of 2020, Parents, and Guardians:
The Wayne Board of Education met in executive session on June 8th to discuss our legal challenges regarding graduation. We know you have been through much and we hope this letter will provide clarity with regard to the intent of the Wayne Township Public Schools and plans for a graduation ceremony to be held in your honor on July 30th. The Wayne Board of Education wants nothing more than to give all our seniors the graduation they deserve on the field at their home schools with all our staff and principals in attendance.
Mayor Vergano recently announced that he would be facilitating an event with full attendance for our seniors from both high schools. As Mayor Vergano indicated, the Wayne Township Public Schools are faced with the state-established guidelines and we are unable to plan a full graduation at this time. Based on advice from legal counsel, we cannot officially participate in such an event as we could risk the loss of funding, as well as other sanctions from the Department of Education. We know this has created a tremendous amount of turmoil for our seniors. We also know how important a traditional graduation is for our seniors and their families and we are optimistic about the future.
There has been a steady stream of good news about opening up our State and we can see every day that restrictions are being lifted as we enter Phase II of our recovery in New Jersey. As this continues, we will be planning a full-scale graduation ceremony on July 30th with the participation of our administrators and staff members. The safety of our students, staff members, and attendees is paramount and we will be releasing requirements for social distancing and other precautions in advance of our graduation ceremony.
We look forward to your virtual graduation on June 18th and then we look forward to seeing you on July 30th.
Sincerely,
Dr. Mark Toback, Superintendent
Catherine Kazan, President
Suzanne Pudup, Vice President
Don Pavlak, Trustee
Eileen Albanese, Trustee
Michael Bubba, Trustee
Stacey Scher, Trustee
Sean Duffy, Trustee
Matt Giordano, Trustee
Dawn Kumar, Trustee
Good! Keep it going. I hope more follow (I won’t hold my breath with Ridgewood, we’ll follow left-wing guidance if led us off a cliff). The governor is infringing on our constitutional rights. It’s quite scary how much our liberties were stripped over the last few months. And now it’ll be our tax money that cleans up the mess.
Hey, let’s impact 100s of millions of people, wipe out most Americans savings, destroy our small businesses community, wreak havoc in the global markets, spike unemployment to record highs, and send checks directly to our citizens and challenge the foundations of capitalism… for a virus that is deadly to mostly nursing homes or individuals who had pre existing conditions or respiratory issues. This honestly sounds like the plot of a bad $0.99 political science meets sci-fi book, the ones that they sell near the birthday cards at the grocery store. The sad part is, the next time we have a medical pandemic that is truly deadline, no one is going to listen!