EAST WINDSOR: Concerns delay venue change for Kreps ceremony

Promotion staying at HHS this year

By Doug Carman, Staff Writer
   EAST WINDSOR — Plans to divide the eighth-grade promotion ceremony at Melvin H. Kreps Middle School into four teams were scrapped almost as soon as parents learned of them, Principal Lori Stein said.
   Ms. Stein said she sent a letter dated March 11 to parents of the school’s students telling them that a single ceremony, rather than four, will be held at the Hightstown High School football field for the 370 students expected to be promoted to high school in June.
   East Windsor Regional School District Superintendent Ed Forsthoffer said this will likely will come as a relief to parents who have complained to the school and the school board in a recent meeting about the split ceremonies.
   ”I don’t think anyone will be upset by it,” Dr. Forsthoffer said. “The few that contacted us, I’m sure they’ll be happier.”
   Ms. Stein posted a copy of the letter on the school’s Web page. In it, she defended her earlier decision to split the eighth-grade class to perform multiple ceremonies, but announced that she and the school were reversing the decision to do so.
   ”After careful consideration of your concerns, and the concerns shared with me by students, I have decided that it would be in the best interest of the entire Kreps School community to go back to our original promotion ceremony at the high school for this year,” the letter stated.
   Dr. Forsthoffer and Ms. Stein said the school considered splitting the ceremonies simply because of the class’s large size. If the ceremony had to be moved indoors because of the weather, he said, Kreps administrators were not certain the school’s gymnasium and auditorium could accommodate all 370 students and their parents and other guests, even with a limit of two guests per student.
   ”We really don’t have big bleachers in the gym. … You set up chairs on the floor and there isn’t a whole lot of room left for our guests,” Dr. Forsthoffer said.
   Ms. Stein said the size of the ceremony itself was an issue. In the March 11 letter she sent to parents, she said the cost of setting up the large ceremony at the high school was more than $6,500. The expense and grandeur is merely for a promotion, which the principal emphasized was not a graduation.
   ”We believe our ceremony has become so extravagant that we feel like it’s overkill, for a lack of a better word, for an eighth-grade promotion,” she told the Herald. “When you go to high school, that’s when you should make a big deal of it.”
   She also said having multiple ceremonies, which would be held at Kreps instead of Hightstown High School, could save the school set-up time and money. But despite the cost, the size and the purported extravagance of the single ceremony, Ms. Stein wrote in the letter that she received about a dozen e-mails and other complaints from parents and students alike over the plan to split it up.
   One of those e-mails came from East Windsor resident Michael Teman, whose son Andrew is in the eighth grade and whose son Daniel will be promoted from the Walter C. Black School. He said he received a letter informing him about the decision to split the promotion ceremonies on March 8 or 9. The letter from Ms. Stein informing him that the decision to divide the ceremony had been reversed came a couple of days later.
   Mr. Teman’s e-mail, a copy of which was sent to the Herald the day before the single ceremony was reinstated, said that some families and students would be forced to miss out on their children’s and friends’ promotions as they would have to pick and choose among conflicting events.
   Mr. Teman told the Herald that he understood the reasoning Ms. Stein gave toward her aborted plan to divide the class, but he said, “We took exception with the lack of communication, the timing and the schedule conflicts it caused for numerous parents.”
   Mr. Teman said “he could not be happier” when he learned of the reversal. He said he thinks the backlash from the parents played a role in that reversal.
   ”Although this issue caused a lot of unnecessary grief it did provide me with a fantastic opportunity to teach my two boys about standing up for what you believe in,” he said. “That is a life lesson worth its weight in gold.”
   Next year, however, the eighth-grade class will be split up, Ms. Stein’s letter stated and Mr. Teman noted.
   ”Please be advised, however, that this is the last year we will be able to hold promotion ceremonies at the high school,” the letter read. “We will host the 2011-2012 promotion in the Kreps auditorium. We will keep parents updated and involved with our decision making.”
   Ms. Stein declined to comment on how next year’s ceremonies would be conducted, saying she and the school were focusing on this year. Dr. Forsthoffer said, “Currently I am worrying about working with the budget. I’m not prepared with any statement about something that will occur 15 months from now.”