Laguna Beach High graduation to return to Irvine Bowl

Laguna Beach High will once again hold its commencement ceremony at the Irvine Bowl, a controversial decision that will return the graduation to the venue for the first time in seven years.

The Irvine Bowl, a 2,600-seat amphitheater on the Festival of Arts grounds, had a history of hosting the graduation prior to the coronavirus pandemic, last doing so in 2019.

At the onset of the pandemic, Laguna Beach High, like many local schools, instituted a drive-through model to recognize the class of 2020.

In 2021, when public health restrictions were still in place, the commencement ceremony moved to Guyer Field, the on-campus stadium, a move that school officials said supported physical distancing and allowed for maximum family attendance.

The graduations continued to be held at the stadium, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, through last June.

A petition to return the ceremony to the Irvine Bowl, led by longtime resident Elizabeth Bates, secured 1,134 signatures in advance of the school board’s Feb. 26 meeting when the matter was settled.

A school board majority consisting of President Sheri Morgan, Clerk Howard Hills and Dee Perry approved the site change, 3-2, with board members James Kelly and Joan Malczewski dissenting.

The board’s decision is not sitting well with all the community stakeholders. It was challenged by a counter petition to have graduation remain at Guyer Field that had garnered 917 signatures as of Friday morning.

“On February 26, 2026, the Laguna Beach Unified School District Board of Education voted to move the Class of 2026 graduation from Guyer Field to the Irvine Bowl based on information that was statistically incomplete, skewed, and not representative of the seniors, seniors’ families, LBHS students/parents, or verified constituents of the City of Laguna Beach,” the petition states, before calling on the board to reverse course prior to its March 12 meeting.

A bone of contention is that some believe the site principal should make the call on where the graduations are held, while others say the decision should be made at the district level.

In the Feb. 26 meeting, Morgan noted that Supt. Jason Glass, appointed to the role on June 9, was new to the community, so it would be “unfair” to put the burden on him to select a site for the graduation. (Glass had noted earlier in the evening that past superintendents had determined that the graduation venue was a decision best left to the site level.)

“I have the utmost respect for the hard work that goes into the planning for such an event,” Morgan said. “I am grateful for the experiences that staff created during COVID under very emergency situations, and a drive-through graduation for all sites. … It was a beautiful solution during an otherwise really difficult time for everyone.

“It was said, at the time, that the graduation venue for the high school would return to the Bowl, and that conversation never happened, so unfortunately, here we are.”

Morgan added that the board represents all community members, saying it would be “disingenuous to not recognize and honor the organizations that continually invest in our students.”

A survey distributed to the current senior class requesting student feedback regarding a venue and other graduation matters returned nearly even results. Of the 107 respondents, 47.1% favored Guyer Field, 46.2% supported the Irvine Bowl, with the remainder stating they had no preference. The high school has a senior class of 214 students, a district spokesperson said.

During the public hearing before the school board made its decision, much of the input came from district staff, with several speakers suggesting the board majority was overstepping by intervening in what some felt should have been a decision to be made by school administrators.

Michelle Foster, a human ecology teacher at the high school, said changing venues at this point in the year would be “a panic session and a nightmare.” She further took umbrage with the notion that the survey questions were tailored to achieve a result desired by site administration.

“The high school staff would like it to remain at the high school for this year, to have everybody just be able to focus on what’s important, which is the students right now,” Foster said.

Addressing Hills directly, Foster said, “We are very offended, Howard, that you keep saying our administrator, our principal, Dr. [Jason] Allemann, who we trust more than anything, created a survey that was biased, so it would go in his favor. We’re tired of it. Stop saying that.

“It was a survey given to all students, and these two [student board representatives attending the meeting] can, I’m sure, attest that not every student checks their email to do a survey, and we can’t force them to do a survey, so you are not going to have 100% of the kids respond, just like anything that we send out. If we get over 50%, we’re stoked.”

Hills said the school board reviewed a bylaw related to graduation and found that the primary person responsible for a decision on a venue was the superintendent.

“Now, we’re being told that, ‘Well, this is for the site administrator to make the decision,’” Hills said. “Well, at the point where people in the public are not happy with the site administrator’s decision, and they want to have a discussion with the superintendent, and/or with the board, then it’s our responsibility to provide a forum for that discussion to take place.

“I can’t believe that I have to explain this,” Hills continued. “So then you have people coming in and say, ‘Stay within your lanes.’ Well, there are no lanes. At the point where you’re a legislative body, and you’re a deliberative body, if there are bureaucratic lanes that are designed for purposes of administration of programs, that’s fine, but the board is not restricted to the lanes that are created administratively.”

Logan Marshall, a student board representative, responded to the “no lanes” comment, saying that there has been a consistent debate over the roles of the board and the superintendent.

“The students are who we’re meant to serve,” Marshall said. “We’ve all said that a million times, and the students are telling you that the status quo is what is preferable. It’s a narrow survey, but the survey is what the survey is, and it’s my job to represent the students. I believe that the students’ voice is what matters most here, because it’s the students’ graduation.

“I think that continuing to create this precedent where the board is the one who decides what happens is dangerous...I think it’s something that everyone is experiencing right now, in terms of on a federal level, as well, about what is separation of power. I think it’s something that the community is being scared of, it’s something that the students are being scared of, and it’s something, quite frankly, that I am scared of, is the notion that the board has no lanes.”