by Jonathan Kleppinger

After a passionate plea in February from senior-class representatives to move graduation ceremonies to Rupp Arena, the Jessamine County Board of Education met Friday to discuss the issue but postponed a decision until the regular March meeting.

In January, the board approved a contract with Southland Christian Church to host the 2014 graduation ceremonies for East Jessamine High School and West Jessamine High School; that contract included a stipulation that tickets would be used to control the crowd size after concerns that audiences had been too large in recent years. District administrators said Friday that an addendum to that contract to use an overflow area has not yet been signed and they hope to extend the deadline on that contract from March 11 to after the March 24 meeting.

Initial plans to distribute tickets for Southland involved giving each graduate six to eight tickets and then being able to distribute additional tickets as they were needed for larger families. But eight senior leaders from East High and West High visited the board in February and urged them to consider moving the ceremony to Rupp Arena in Lexington, where tickets would not be necessary.

In discussions Friday, most board members said they were in favor of a more thorough poll of seniors, with Fran Settle saying her goal was to be accommodating to the wishes of the students.

"If this is what our students want, we need to go with what their wishes are," Settle said. "It's their day; it's not ours."

Board member Hallie Bandy said she was not convinced that a large majority of seniors would prefer Rupp Arena to Southland. She said she had concerns about the the ease of accessibility in Rupp as well as the additional cost for parking, and she said she personally "hated" the idea of concessions being sold at a graduation ceremony, which district officials expect would be required at Rupp.

West Jessamine High School senior president Daniel Sherfey was one of the speakers at the February meeting and was in attendance Friday. When asked about the attitudes of his peers, Sherfey said he believed the ratio of students in favor of a venue not requiring tickets to students in favor of Southland with tickets was "98 to 2."

Board chair Eugene Peel said he was not in favor of changing the location from Southland this year. Peel speculated that Southland might not accept Jessamine County back for future graduations if the district went to Rupp this year; he said he had asked Southland to start hosting graduations a long time ago and it had taken the church several years before it first offered the facilities in 2003. Peel has served as a deacon at the church.

Southland's main auditorium has a capacity of 2,843, and the overflow area would seat about 900 students. Although the current figures list 227 seniors at East High and 273 at West High, the district has been working with projections of 250 and 280, respectively, and deputy superintendent Matt Moore said those numbers fluctuate often.

Bandy said that with the overflow area, the current graduate figures would allow graduates an average of more than 10 tickets each — a number she said she thought was "reasonable." Board member Debbie Hood said she was hearing that "no one wants to be in the overflow room," and the seniors who spoke to the board in February said they wouldn't want their families in that area, but vice chair Amy Day said she believed the experience in the overflow area would be very similar to sitting in the back of the auditorium and watching the large screens.

Peel said he was also concerned about the additional cost of Rupp Arena, telling Sherfey his attitude was one of "what we can pay for."

The total projected cost of Rupp Arena would be $20,150 as long as the ceremonies were held the same weekend as Fayette County's five high-school graduations, June 5-7; the cost could be $2,000 higher if the date is not close to Fayette County's graduations and stages have to be set again. The total projected cost of Southland was $15,250.

Bandy suggested that if Rupp were used, graduates could be given six tickets each and be charged $5 each for additional tickets.

If the board were to decide to use Rupp Arena the weekend of June 5-7, the Jessamine County graduations could not be set until the Fayette County district had picked two of those days for its graduations. Superintendent Kathy Fields said Friday she was confident that most districts would be finalizing their end-of-year schedules by the end of March.

The board asked Sherfey to survey as many seniors as possible about the options. Bandy said those results wouldn't "make the decision" but would give the board an idea of the strength of feelings among seniors.

Moore said he hoped to extend the deadline for the Southland contract addendum to after March 24 to allow the board to make a decision about the graduation venue at its March 24 regular meeting. Fields said the graduation venue would be placed on the agenda for that meeting, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Royse administration building in Nicholasville.