It’s something Madelyn Mancini and her two ‘daughters’ have been wishing for months now: the school board will discuss foreign exchange diploma recognition tonight.
According to the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s agenda item for Tuesday nights meeting, six students currently at Live Oak High School are attending the entire year of school, while four others, including Mancini’s own host daughter Camila Costa of Brazil, attended for one semester. She left after finding out she could not receive an American diploma.
Mancini and her husband Steve are currently host parents to two foreign exchange students from Italy, Federica Bruno and Lisa Gilardi, seniors at Live Oak who are attending the full school year. Mancini addressed the board in December on behalf of her girls who were working toward high school diplomas.
“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 in December. “And every time we brought more information, until we had everything. Then they said ‘Sorry no, we never had exchange students graduate before.'”
MHUSD’s agenda item proposes that an honorary diploma/certificate be issued if certain criteria are met by the foreign students, including: a minimum 2.0 GPA, average 97 percent attendance rate, a transcript analysis from their home country that indicates progress in their high school equivalent and full time enrollment for two consecutive semesters in MHUSD.
The MHUSD public school board meeting begins at 6 p.m. tonight and is held at 15600 Concord Circle.
