Local News in Brief : Irvine : 150 Parents Get Tips for Graduation Night

About 150 high school parents from all over Southern California gathered at the Woodbridge Community Center on Saturday for an all-day “Grad Night Workshop.”

The workshop was sponsored by the nonprofit Grad Night Foundation of Costa Mesa, an organization that helps promote drug- and alcohol-free all-night celebrations for graduating high school seniors.

Lori Warmington of Newport Beach, president of the Grad Night Foundation, told the parents that Grad Night is a phenomenon that has spread from Orange County throughout California and is now extending into other states. About half of Orange County’s high schools now have a Grad Night, she said, “and our goal is to get all the other high schools in the county interested so that they will start Grad Nights.” Huntington Beach High, which will sponsor its first Grad Night next June, is the most recent Orange County school to join the Grad Night ranks.

Greg Cops, principal of Woodbridge High in Irvine, told the audience that he was skeptical about the possible benefits when his high school first started Grad Night.

“Now I am here to give testimony about how much it helps a high school,” he said. “I see Grad Night as like a big barn raising. It brings parents together in helping their children and helping their school, and it has a tremendous value. . . . It not only provides a safe evening for the kids, but parents, through their labor of several months in preparation for this, demonstrate their love for their kids. . . . There is a real sense of community in doing this.”