Student Can’t Participate In Graduation High School Senior Was Taught At Home By Missionary Parents

Grangeville School District Superintendent Al Arnzen has decided not to allow a Salmon River High School senior who was taught at home for two years to graduate with her senior class.

Mary Dischinger, 17, moved to Riggins late last year after having lived in Sandpoint and Haiti, where her parents were missionaries.

She attended Salmon River High School this year after being taught at home during her sophomore and junior years, and hoped to attend graduation exercises this week with the other seniors.

Arnzen said, however, that Dischinger failed to meet district requirements for graduation, and would not be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies.

“There’s got to be some standard for us to accept credits,” the superintendent said.

“The standard that we have chosen is if they’ve gotten their home schooling from an accrediting institution of some kind, we will accept that. But if they are just being home-schooled by parents,” with an unaccredited curriculum, “we don’t accept it.”

Dischinger received most of her schooling at Sandpoint, where her family used to live.

When she learned that the Grangeville School District would not accept her home-school credits, she applied for and received her General Education Development certificate. She also has been appointed to the Marion Military Academy in Alabama, where she intends to study science.

Dischinger was told by her senior adviser earlier in the year that she would be able to graduate with the Salmon River class.

But Arnzen said he was not consulted before that promise was made, and it did not conform to district policy.

“I don’t have any problem with them making a choice to home school,” he said, “but when you make a choice you have to live with that choice.”