Parent Raises Question on Graduation Site Switch at LSSD Board Meeting

Lindsey Anderson is a parent who has two students graduating on May 30th at Two Harbors High School. She and her husband, Eric, attended last week’s Lake Superior School District 381 board meeting to advocate for themselves and oth­er district families who are upset about the fact that this year’s grad­uation ceremony has been switched from the school gym to the auditori­um. Due to the fact that the audito­rium at the high school offers fewer seats than the gym, the families of graduates have found that they can­not accommodate all of their fam­ily members who are planning on attending the graduation ceremony. The smaller space will also affect any underclassmen and community members who would have liked to personally attend the ceremony.

District officials will be streaming the ceremony in the school cafete­ria for those who don’t have tick­ets to see the graduation ceremony “live”. This solution, unfortunately, is not very satisfying for some folks who are traveling a long distance to watch their grandchildren graduate.

In her statement before the board, Anderson pointed out that gradua­tion has always been a communi­ty event and she was unsure if the community understood that the change in venue would mean that there would be limits to communi­ty participation. She questioned the way that district officials communi­cated about the change, saying that some parents she spoke to were not clear on why the change was being made. District officials did send out a survey to families, but Anderson said that the reasons giv­en about the change of venue were confusing. “We’ve all been given different information.” Apparently, some parents told her that they had not received any emails about the change.

Anderson stated that a number of families would like to see the cer­emony moved back to the gym or to the football field so that more people could be accommodated. “Graduation was always held in the gym. It has been a big community event for everyone to enjoy togeth­er, to celebrate our kids who we encourage to be a part of this com­munity. This is being taken away from both the community and the students this year.”

Board Chair, Traci Tiboni ac­knowledged that, “When things are being changed, everyone won’t be on the same page. The board was informed about the process and there were multiple commu­nications about the change sent to district families.” School officials started communicating about the possibility of the change early last Fall. Surveys were sent out to par­ents and students, and the adminis­trative team took all of that infor­mation into consideration before making their decision. Tiboni said that for now, the graduation cere­mony will remain in the auditorium and administrators will be evaluat­ing the pros and cons of the move prior to next year’s ceremony.

In other business, the board voted to accept the revised budget sum­mary for fiscal year 2025. The sum­mary for 2025 indicates that dis­trict revenues for this year totaled $26,807,000.00 while expenditures totaled $26,923,446.00. There were some unforeseen expenses that oc­curred this year that showed up on the balance sheet. School funding formulas are complicated and dis­tricts end up having to generate pro­posed budgets prior to having every piece of information about poten­tial budget impacts. The proposed budget for 2026 is currently being worked on and will be presented at the next school board meeting, which will be held on June 10th at Two Harbors High School at 6:00 PM.