Does your public high school still do a Baccalaureate service for seniors?

[jerp]

Last week we attended a Baccalaureate service for our son's high school graduating class. I guess I have not been paying attention because I did not realize how rare these are now. In Aledo a local Episcopal priest has organized one for the last 18 years. It is very ecumenical, each year he invites clergy from several local churches to speak. This year pastors from local Baptist, Methodist, Catholic churches spoke as well as one from a non-denominational Bible Church. (there are no non-christian houses of worship in our town) Each spoke a few minutes or said a prayer. A few selected seniors also said a prayer or read scripture. It was very nice but only about a third of the 350 graduating seniors attended. I talked to the priest afterward who organizes it each year and he explained how services of this type are pretty much a thing of the past. It can't be school sponsored of course, in fact technically the school is not supposed to even announce that it will be held. I think the organizers have to raise funds to rent the auditorium so they can do it at the school. Do services of this type still go on in your town?

[casilva43]

I had one in Iriving, but that was more than 10 years ago.

[Bweger]

Yup. My daughter graduated last week and they held one a couple days prior to graduation. The preachers from all 5 churches in our town spoke.

[Shane]

One of the cool things about a private school....our graduation ceremony is filled with prayer, scripture reading, spiritually-focused talks from guest speakers, faculty, and students. Same as the old days in public schools, pretty much.

[Sippy]

One of the cool things about a private school....our graduation ceremony is filled with prayer, scripture reading, spiritually-focused talks from guest speakers, faculty, and students. Same as the old days in public schools, pretty much.

Ours too! it was pretty cool

[CoachStanton]

it is perfectly acceptable for a school to announce that there will be a Baccalaureate service and the facilities should be free. Our campus hosts one every year. Like I mentioned in another post, the school cannot require it, but it is actually illegal to keep an outside organization from hosting one. You either have to allow all groups the right to use your facilities or none at all. The schools cannot pick and choose.

[2B4Him]

Jerp,
Our sons may know each other - both graduating seniors at Aledo.
We found out about the service by accident - certainly nothing from the school and our son wasn't particularly forthcoming about it. We did not attend because he had other plans (and he is very involved in our HS ministry at church). In fact, our son was kind of PO'd that our HS minister wasn't one of the speakers (although a lot of folks from our church live in Aledo, our church is just W of downtown FW and definitely not part of the Aledo community - we would never expect him to be invited to speak in Aledo).
However, those services used to be a vital part of the whole graduation process. I can't imagine why they have become almost 'fringe'.

[D C]

our small town still does it.

[TMC50]

ours does too... bandera that is

[LeanMachine]

I don't know if the actual school does one. But a local church has one every year for the school i graduated from.

[SAC]

Weimar still does.

[Dr. D]

Yessir...the sunday before graduation. It was a lovely thing.

[huntmaster]

Mesquite does

[rferg84]

Sweetwater does.

[LemmeOut]

Thrall started doing them again a few years ago when my nephew graduated. It was actually held at our church. I had never heard of one and I graduated in 2000 but we have a different pastor now then we had then so I think it is something he got started again. They have had a very positive response from the students and parents since starting it up again.