The Livingston High School valedictorian, Jeffrey Xu, and salutatorian, Kathleen Zhang, were both honored and spoke during the Monday, June 26, Township Council meeting.
“Students who work this hard are the icons who elevate the status of this township,” said Livingston Board of Education president Vineeta Khanna in introducing the recent graduates.
Xu, who thanked the Council and Livingston Public Schools Board of Education for working together on behalf of students, also gave a speech at last week’s graduation ceremony, which may be seen elsewhere in this edition of the Tribune.
Zhang, in her first opportunity to give a public address for graduation, noted that she “had her speech removed (from the commencement ceremony) for unjust reasons,” and was told by school administrators to “reflect” on her actions in fighting to give her speech at graduation. The full text of her address to the Council may be found on page A-6.
“Don’t let anyone diminish your issue as unimportant. Change will never get made if each individual dismisses their issues as useless or insignificant,” Zhang said. “Be the reason why change is made, not the reason why injustice continues.”
In previous years, Livingston High School’s valedictorian and salutatorian both spoke before their class during graduation. Several years ago, changes in the district’s student handbook noted that one student – whose speech would be selected by administrators from a series of submissions, regardless of GPA and to greater reflect the district’s “portrait of a graduate” – would speak instead of the salutatorian, starting in 2022. Last year, there were co-valedictorians, and both gave speeches, essentially pushing the start of this new policy to this year.
Among those in attendance at Monday’s meeting were Board president Khanna, vice president Pam Chirls, and Board member Parul Khemka. Those Board members said JenissaArnette was traveling but sent a letter of support.
Following the speech, Khanna said that the Board had spent “30 hours on those three minutes,” in recent weeks, discussing whether or not to permit the salutatorian to speak at graduation.
Khanna said the discussion continued until graduation, and that during those discussions, she offered to forego her own speech to allow the time for Zhang to address the crowd instead.
Under a “Graduation Speeches” section of the LHS Student Handbook, it reads: “Beginning with the Class of 2022, two student speeches will be delivered during the graduation ceremony in June. The first speech will be delivered by the class’s valedictorian. The second speech will be selected among speeches submitted by any member of the graduating class. In selecting the speech that will represent the graduating class, a faculty panel will consider the message and quality of the speech, as well as the contributions made by the applicant throughout the student’s time at Livingston High School.”
Members of the Board Monday noted that these changes were made without the Board’s direct input, and since they were amended to accommodate co-valedictorians in 2022, then additional accommodations could have been made for this year’s graduation, as well. Khanna, whose Board term is up at the end of the year and will not seek reelection, also noted that the Board is working to remedy the issue for future years, when the valedictorian, salutatorian, and student speaker could potentially all be permitted to address the graduating class.
