By Tom Larsen
Do you know where your new graduate will be on Grad Night? Graduation time will soon to be upon us for our junior high and high schools throughout the valley. For our high school students, graduation is an end to four years of hard work of studying, midterms, final exams, rallies, assemblies, football games and school dances. Graduation day is a day of great relief, as students take their next step into adulthood and start a new phase of their life.
Graduation day can also be a day of tragedy, as our youth take to their cars with joy in their hearts and a bottle of alcohol in their hands, projecting 4,000 pounds of metal over Highway 17, and in an instant, a carload of good students find their lives coming to an abrupt end as their car stops suddenly against a tree. Or as they come home from an unsupervised private Grad Night party, laced with alcohol and drugs, bleary-eyed, ending four years of high school with an overdose, an unwanted pregnancy or death. What a tragic waste of our most valuable resources. This does not have to be.
The parents of high school seniors throughout the valley have been working hard since September of last year to provide a safe and sane, drug- and alcohol-free Grad Night party for these wonderful youth. They can dance all night to their most popular DJ and win prizes such as mountain bikes, VCRs, CD players and TVs, cameras and camcorders, only to name a few. Some of our local high schools even give away a new car. There are games for everyone, food all night and even a place to sleep if fatigue comes early. Your new grad will be in a well-supervised, safe and sane area from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., not allowed to go home unless picked up by a parent or guardian.
Make Grad Night a memory to be cherished and not a memory of despair. If money is tight, please contact your senior advisor of the high school or the Grad Night chairperson. At our high school, no student will be turned away. Scholarships are available for all those who have a need.
Know where your grads are graduation night. Parents, please encourage your new grad to attend their local high school Grad Night celebration.
Speaking for Fremont High School, I salute the parents of the Grad Night Committee of 1996 for making a difference in the lives of our new grads.
You will never know the good you have done the past eight months, but if we can save one life that otherwise may have been lost, it is worth every ounce of work you have contributed. Thank you so much for your dedicated effort.
Tom Larsen is Grad Night chairperson for Fremont High School in Sunnyvale. Saratoga High School parents also should be saluted for their hard work on on Grad Night.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, June 5, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved