Majority of Eighth-Graders at Lydia Wright School Can’t Graduate

Dozens of parents of students attending the Dr. Lydia T. Wright School #89 in Buffalo are outraged their children are not graduating on its moving-up day Wednesday.

At an emergency news conference held outside the school, early Tuesday evening parent advocates and some school parents called on the district to allow their children to participate.

Initially, the school said it would only be graduating eight of its 65 eighth-graders but later said 17 would be allowed to be part of moving up day.

Aymanuel Radford is with ‘We The Parents’. He says parents were told Tuesday their child failed class or classes and was not allowed to graduate. Radford also said the Wright School has a high suspension rate among the eighth-grade class.

“At Dr. Lydia T. Wright, the highest suspended grade level is 8th grade. They suspend 35% of the 8th graders, it’s only 65 students and they suspend 35% of the 8th graders,” Radford remarked.

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Some parents say the school was not transparent about their child’s failing grades.

“Nobody called. Nobody texted me. Nobody told me anything, so I didn’t know he still had math work to complete,” declared Lakiesha Seales. {snip}

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Parent Michelle Robinson says the school failed her son.

“Now he needs math, science, and social studies. I’m supposed to get this entire book of 180-something pages done with him in two days in order for him to pass the math part and then we still have to do the social studies and the science. That is not something we are going to be to accomplish,” stated Robinson.

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