October 2, 2013 at 5:02 p.m.
Former Rhinelander student who objected to part of curriculum gets diploma six years later
White was set to graduate with the Class of 2007 but was barred from receiving a diploma after he objected to the district's requirement that students take a psychology or sociology class to graduate. He claimed the requirement was in conflict with his religious beliefs.
White earned a High School Equivalency Diploma (HSED) instead and went on to attend Michigan Technological University. Now employed at AirPro in Rhinelander, he is finally a Rhinelander High School graduate. Last week, the School District of Rhinelander handed him his diploma.
According to Superintendent Kelli Jacobi, the controversy surrounding White's non-graduation came up over the summer when district officials were working to help other students who didn't graduate achieve their goal of enlisting in the military.
"This summer we started looking at adults earning their diplomas. It's set up so that kids that didn't graduate - and this is not Chet, this is just what we were working on - but kids that don't graduate but end up wanting to go into the military needed a way to get a high school diploma because that's required to enter the military," Jacobi said. "There are qualifications they need to meet to get a diploma as an adult. They have to have their HSED (High School Equivalency Diploma) and they have to have enough post-secondary credits to make up for the deficiencies in high school, so there's a way we can do that."
During those discussions, Jacobi said she and her team realized there were other adults who might also qualify for a diploma.
"As we were working on that, we looked at what other students we might have had - we realized we should be looking at this more broadly - so we did some background digging and found that it really only applied to a few students. Chet was one of them," she said.
Jacobi said the decision to grant White his diploma was an easy one.
"As we were looking at all of these pieces, Chet's name came to the forefront. He had a great grade point average. He had well over the number of credits that were required to graduate. He had done an independent study his senior year that could be used to make up for any credit area that was deficient if there had been one," Jacobi said. "We really looked at all of the information and, to me, it was just making sure we were taking care of all of our kids, even though he was no longer one of our kids. It was something that needed to be done."
The crux of the controversy back in 2007 was a requirement that students complete a psychology/sociology course in order to graduate. Jacobi said one of the problems for the district back then was that there was no one in the director of curriculum position to help quell the controversy and work with White to resolve the problem.
"If he had graduated a year later, sociology and psychology were no longer required," she said. "There was nobody in the director of curriculum position during his high school years. There was nobody in my old position that could have helped work through the issues that he had. It was a big controversial issue and I believe that if there had been someone in the director of curriculum position, they could have helped resolve those issues before they became so big."
The problem was taken care of the following year when Jacobi reworked the graduation requirements so that they were more in line with other districts in the state.
"We have to look at kids' needs," she said. "When I started then, he was already done, but one of the issues that we worked on right away was looking at the social studies requirements because there were, compared to other districts and state requirements, we had far more stringent social studies requirements than the rest of the state, so we made some changes there."
Though she has not been able to speak with White, Jacobi said she hopes he and the rest of the community appreciate the gesture as an example of how the district has changed over the years in an effort to help every individual student find success.
"I haven't been able to talk to him to know how he feels, if it even made a difference to him. I hope it did, just to know that we're a different school district. We're paying attention to individual students, not just the district as a whole," she said. "Obviously, he's a successful adult. He got his HSED, he went to college, did fabulously, he didn't need this diploma. He's gotten on with his life but it was just something, it would have hurt my feelings if I had been in his place so we found that we could make it happen fairly without doing anything under the table."
White said he appreciates the district's gesture in giving him the diploma.
"I never really expected it. Once I left, I figured it was set in stone that they would never want me to graduate from Rhinelander, so I was happy that they wanted to take that step. It was never something I felt like I had to have, otherwise I would have fought it back when it wasn't approved in 2007," he said. "Back then, I knew it was wrong. It wasn't like I went to college thinking I should have taken one of those classes or anything like that. I knew it was wrong then, I just didn't feel like it was worth my time to fight it. I accepted what they ruled, I got a state High School Equivalency Diploma, I went and got my bachelor's in mechanical engineering at Michigan Tech, so I guess it wasn't something I felt that I needed, but I was very happy that they decided to do it."
"One thing I've talked about a lot is it seems that in the public schools and even just in America today, it seems that everything is being tolerated except for Christians and that was one thing that was fun to see Rhinelander take a stand on," he added.
"The basis I was standing on back in 2007 was that these classes taught principles that were unbiblical, that went against what the Bible taught us about what we are as people psychologically and how we deal with other people sociologically. That's the basis I was standing on, ... but because it was (a) Christian (basis) I feel like that was a big reason why there was such a push back against it."
White said he's relieved graduation requirements have been changed and no other student will find himself in the situation he was in.
"It was fun to see Rhinelander take a stand and say they are going to work with everybody," he said.
"I'm glad they did it. I think that's a good thing."
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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