Society Needs Sales Clerks Too

Cheers to Steve Lopez for his May 8 column on District C Supt. Robert Collins’ ridiculous decree that students not headed for college or the military cannot participate in commencement exercises. Every person is not college material. Everyone who completes the high school course curriculum deserves the same commencement exercise regardless of future plans. Working at a job, which Collins says is not sufficient, is actually a very good plan.

Our society runs on a basis of everyone making his or her own contribution based on his or her skills. Without sales clerks, truck drivers, construction workers and a plethora of other job functions our society would collapse. Part of education is learning what your skills are and where they are best applied.

If everyone went to college, who would build the schools or print the newspapers? It is about time that our educators realize that it’s all about pride in one’s work and not about how educated you are that makes a society well-rounded and functional.

Jan Foster

West Hollywood

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It is inconceivable to me that there exists a policy in the always-backward LAUSD that punishes kids who have earned the right to walk the stage at graduation. As a college-bound senior at Hamilton High School, maybe I am just a “well-off do-gooder,” but I don’t believe it. I have a close friend who doesn’t have enough money to go straight to college after graduation. I have witnessed his tremendous effort every day to take a two-hour bus ride to school, hold a steady job to help support his family, all the while managing to get the grades to graduate. If my friend, who deserves the right to walk the stage more than any “do-gooder” who has college plans, including myself, were refused a cap and gown, then I would refuse to walk the stage as well.

I am only a 17-year-old student of a barely functioning LAUSD school, with embarrassingly low test scores, but I know what kids go through to graduate, and I know District C’s policy is insane.

Sophie Hunter

Los Angeles

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Commencement, from “commence: To begin; initiate; start.” Kudos to District C for establishing expectations and reminding everyone of the meaning of the word and the ceremony.

John Keitel

West Hollywood