Taylor High student excluded from graduation,
Exchange student from the Netherlands says he wasn’t told about two required classes; district says case is under review.
School officials have told a Taylor High School foreign exchange student he can’t walk during graduation, upsetting friends and classmates who have taken to social media as they lobby the school district to reconsider.
Hidde Tuinte, a 17-year-old senior from the Netherlands, had already taken senior photos and purchased a shiny green Taylor High School cap and gown when he was told in April that he couldn’t walk during graduation. He didn’t take at least two classes required to graduate — a counselor never told him he had to, Hidde said.
“My dad is flying over from the Netherlands and I think he would like to see me walk,” Hidde said. “I think it’s important just to be there with everyone else I’ve met this year.”
In a statement released Thursday night, Superintendent Jerry Vaughn wrote that school board policy requires students to meet all federal and state requirements in order to participate in graduation activities, but Vaughn added that the matter is still under review.
Hidde said school officials told him on Thursday he could walk if he sends them all of his report cards from the Netherlands and completes a speech course before graduation on May 29.
“As dedicated as he is, if anybody could pull that off, it would be him,” his host mother Jennifer Lovejoy said.
Hidde doesn’t need a diploma. He graduated from high school in the Netherlands last school year and is already planning to attend college in Amsterdam after he returns in the summer. But he’s still hoping to have the “quintessential American experi- ence” and walk with his friends, Lovejoy said.
Hidde said he is humbled by the solidarity of his classmates, even though he never asked for it.
Friends and strangers have posted and reposted about 1,500 Tweets with the hashtag #lethiddewalk. He said some of his friends have been suspended for showing their support and have committed to not walking during graduation unless he walks. Students have scrawled the hashgtag in lipstick on school bathroom mirrors while others have stopped him in the school hallway for pictures, he said.
“He is extremely intelligent, shy and very warm hearted, and that is the reason why you’re seeing the level of support from his classmates,” said friend Brent Humphreys, who has worked with Hidde on an initiative to bring a skate park to Taylor.
“That doesn’t happen every day.”