Federica Bruno and Lisa Gilardi want to graduate from Live Oak High School with the rest of their senior class.
It sounds like a typical high school wish to finish required classes and graduate, but for these girls, it’s a little bit more complicated than that.
Bruno and Gilardi, both 17, are foreign exchange students from Italy, here for a year in Morgan Hill. They’ve each paid the school district $8,245 for the year, plus $600 a month for room and board. Yet because they’re exchange students, they may not receive an actual diploma.
“They’re 4.0 students, they’re taking Advance Placement classes. They spend hours studying. They take school very seriously,” said Madelyn Mancini, their host mother who the girls call “Mom.”
According to the California Education Code, individual school districts are allowed to provide graduation recognition to exchange students who complete their senior year in a California high school – in the form of an honorary diploma that is distinguishable from a regular diploma. These diplomas are for foreign exchange students “who have not completed the course of study ordinarily required for graduation, and who are returning to their home countries following the completion of one academic school year in a school district in the state,” reads California Education Code 51225.5.
Madelyn and Steve Mancini have been host parents for the last 20 years in Morgan Hill, and currently have Bruno and Gilardi with them for the school year on F-1 visas. Their other “daughter” Camila Costa, from Brazil, left in early January after one semester of school at Live Oak when she found out she could not receive an actual diploma.
According to the Morgan Hill Unified School District board policy 5127, the board does allow foreign exchange students to receive an honorary diploma during the graduation ceremony. Mancini said honorary isn’t quite enough, considering the work the girls are doing to finish their requirements.
“I want them to go home with diplomas,” said Madelyn Mancini.
All three girls were on their way to complete all their graduation requirements with Live Oak yet ran into a roadblock several months ago.
“The problem was every time we went there, they told us no because we don’t have the transcripts, we don’t have this, you don’t have enough credit for this,” said Bruno. “And every time we brought more information, until we had everything. Then they said ‘Sorry no, we never had exchange students graduate before.’”
Graduation requirements include four years or 40 credits of English, 30 credits of math, 30 credit of social science, 20 credits of science, 20 of visual and performing arts or a foreign language and 60 additional elective credits. They must also pass the California High School Exit Exam.
The girls had their transcripts from their respective Italian high schools sent, translated and transferred in order to meet some of these requirements. Both are taking adult education night classes in order to fulfill their history class requirement and even immersing themselves into the typical high school by participating in sports – Bruno was on girls golf team, Gilardi on the tennis team.
In Italy, high school is a five-year process, with students attending specific career-oriented schools such as “liceo scienfico” a science-based high school, or “liceo classico” a humanity-centered high school. Both girls attend scientific-based high schools in the Lombardy region of Italy, yet by studying abroad this year, their fourth year of their education in America does not count toward their five-year Italian program. They must still pass their final exam in June to pass their fourth year of liceo and to move on to their fifth year.
“It’s even some satisfaction for ourselves, that we came here and we sacrificed one year … having a diploma its just like, achieving something,” said Bruno.
“My father really hoped that I could get it. ‘Try to get it, it’s really important, it’s like a sign that you did something there.’ ” Gilardi said. “Everybody they think that, oh they go there and they on vacation. But if you come back with a diploma, it’s a sign that you did something.”
Madelyn Mancini addressed the school board through public comment at a December school board meeting, asking the board to consider giving her ‘daughters’ a real diploma.
MHUSD school board president Ron Woolf told the Times the board has the topic scheduled for discussion at the Jan. 31 meeting.
“I think we should honor the students, they’re being counted here as a student,” said Woolf. “With my experience with those students, 95 of 100, they’ve got it all together.”
Woolf said that if the students came in and met all the requirements for graduation, “then I would say yeah you could probably get a diploma” although he considers it unlikely because of the lengthy list of requirements.
Board trustee Bob Benevento said he would be interested in reviewing the policy.
“I would be supportive of the idea of re-writing or composing a new board policy, where we could award a diploma to a foreign exchange student. As a district, it was a policy that was never brought up,” Benevento said.
Mancini said at least seven other districts in California award diplomas to their foreign exchange students, including Lancaster County. Nearby Gilroy Unified School District also awards honorary diplomas to foreign exchange students.
“We came here, we are doing an experience,” said Gilardi. “Even going through the process of graduating with our friends is part of it.”
