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Honors student is dishonored by corrupt rule in Bethlehem


by Paul Carpenter

At a time the Bethlehem Area School District
was giving high school diplomas to some young
people who could not read or write, Paul Toluba
was ranked 69th in a class of 389 at Liberty
High School after completing a wide range of
honors courses.

He had four years of Latin plus the most
difficult math, science, English and social
studies courses.

This past week, 13 years after leaving Liberty,
Toluba was fired from his job because his
employer found out he did not have an official
high school diploma.

A neatly typed ''Official Transcript'' provided
by the BASD lists all his academic
accomplishments through 1995, but at the bottom
is a handwritten note by Sheryl Clewell, a
guidance counselor. ''Not a graduate due to not
completing community service,'' she scrawled.

Toluba asked me, for the time being, not to
identify the local company that "terminated"
him on Thursday. He has hopes of getting back
his job, perhaps by earning a GED diploma,
although there may be a snag in that process.

"I'd been working for them since the 10th of
August," he said, noting he also has had jobs
with other companies over the last 13 years.
"It [the diploma] never became an issue."

Community service is the BASD's only firm
requirement for a high school diploma. I've
railed against this corrupt concept since it
was implemented in 1989.

The idea for that requirement was hatched by
school officials to help Musikfest, which, in
1989, suddenly found itself deprived of some
free labor.

On Aug. 16, 1989, two days after Bethlehem
decided to stop providing city workers to boost
Musikfest profits, the BASD announced the
"Community Service Program," which I call the
Mandatory Volunteer Program. It denied a
diploma to any student who failed to
"volunteer" to provide free labor to Musikfest
or other select projects.

The BASD official who originated that plan, by
the way, was a brother-in-law of the Musikfest
director.

The emphasis on Musikfest ended after it was
discovered that students were being forced to
work side-by-side with drug dealers and other
criminals provided to Musikfest by the county
jail, or were working at sleazy Musikfest beer
tents. The BASD, however, continued its putrid
program.

Just how putrid is it?

Sue Toluba, Paul's mother, remembered that when
he was still an honors student, he thought that
helping other students might be a good way of
providing community service, so he volunteered
to be a tutor.

"The kids were funneled and channeled to work
at Musikfest," she said. "The overall
suggestion was that they could volunteer for
Musikfest." So Paul Toluba's offer to help
weaker students was rejected. "I was banned
from the graduation ceremony," he said.

At that time, many of the finest students
refused to submit to the program because they
already did genuine volunteer work and opposed
compulsory volunteerism on principle.

Also at that time, I asked then-Superintendent
Thomas Doluisio if the BASD was giving any
diplomas to functional illiterates at the same
time it was denying them for some of its best
and brightest students. Seemingly aware that I
had a list of such graduating nincompoops in my
pocket, he confirmed that it was.

Many students refused to submit to the
Mandatory Volunteer Program and went on to
colleges that recognized just how corrupt it
was, and still is. Others obtained GED
diplomas, but as I mentioned above, there was a
snag for Toluba.

He said that when he contacted the state
Department of Education about getting a GED, he
was told he was ineligible because he already
had fulfilled all of the academic requirements
for a high school diploma.

That is not correct, department spokesman
Michael Race told me. He sent me the state's
GED regulations, which say only that those
taking the tests must be state residents over
18 who "have not graduated from high school or
received a high school diploma or equivalency
certificate."

So I hope Toluba and the state work out the
snag, and that he can get back his job while
telling the BASD to go, ahem, fly a kite.



— Paul Carpenter
Hartford Courant
2007-10-12
http://www.courant.com/topic/all-5honors.6618741oct12,0,7283537.column?track=rss-topicgallery

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