Paying the price for prom and graduation

It’s that time of year for high school seniors.  In a couple of weeks, Bay Area graduates will walk across the stage and collect their diplomas.

But, crossing the stage isn’t the only thing graduating seniors are looking forward to.  There’s going to the prom and getting the yearbook…..there are also unexpected surprises, such as lost book fees that finally come due.

KALW’s Education Reporter Nancy Mullane reports on the economics of ending high school.

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NANCY MULLANE: Graduation is so close, seniors at Oakland Technical High School already walk with a confident swagger through the halls. It’s practically a free ride between now and when they collect their diplomas, but just about everything else associated with graduation has a price tag attached.

AUTUMN SIMONE LA CROSBY: You have prom, which is not cheap; it’s $85 a ticket. Then you have the yearbook, which is $65.

Senior Autumn Simone La Crosby is Treasurer of the Associated Student Body.

LA CROSBY: Then you have the senior hoodie which is $45. Then you have the sitting fee for the yearbook which is $20. Then you have to take senior pictures, of course, wherever you take them at depends on how much it is.

MULLANE: So what about the prom? The prom is $85?

LA CROSBY: For one ticket, yes. Then you have to buy your dress of course and your shoes. So a lot of people get their dress made. That would be like $120 to $300 at the most. Shoes, dress, hair, make-up, nails. Yep.

MULLANE: And how much does that all cost?

LA CROSBY: So nails, it depends.  The most you can spend on nails is $40. Everybody use fake nails for prom so you get your nails, that’s $40, depending on what design you get. Then you get your toes, which is $25. Then your eyebrows, $8 for your eyebrows. Your hair can be anywhere from $70, maybe $80 to $120 for the hair.

But this young lady, who seems to know everything about the prom, isn’t going.

LA CROSBY: The reason I’m not going to the prom is because I owe $230 for the rest of my cheerleading uniform.

MULLANE: What?

LA CROSBY: Yes, our cheerleading uniforms are $400. $389, that’s $400.

MULLANE: You have to buy your cheerleading uniforms?

LA CROSBY: Yes, and if you don’t pay your debt, you cannot graduate or go to prom.

La Crosby says she paid a deposit for the uniform, but when she dropped out of the squad to focus on other projects, she didn’t tell her parents there was a debt.

LA CROSBY: My dad and mom said they can’t do both.

MULLANE: Can’t do both what?

LA CROSBY: They can’t pay for the cheerleading uniform and pay for all the expenses for prom and graduation. 

MULLANE: So you had to make a choice.

LA CROSBY: Yep.

Actually, La Crosby says, there really wasn’t much of a choice involved. Anyone who wants to buy a ticket to the prom has to go through Rose Whisenton, and she knows every student and every debt.

Whisenton unlocks the steel security gate and inner door to the school treasury. It’s an office packed with receipt books, order forms and half-filled boxes of glossy yearbooks. Keyera Lucas Evans is just outside the front door: a senior who has met all of the academic requirements for graduation and is looking forward to attending Howard University in the fall.

But before graduating from high school, she has to pay for two lost books.  A $20 library book titled Botswana in Pictures that she lost last year and a $98 AP math textbook she lost this year.  Whisenton has already spoken to Lucas Evans’ teacher and has a suggestion.

ROSE WHISENTON: Get the information for the book from Ms. Wolff and you can go online and order that book for $10 and then have them ship it to you, and she’ll accept that instead of you paying $98 for that book. She gave you a gift, ‘cause I called her and she said she could go online and replace the book for $10. Go to her. OK?

Whisenton turns to her adding machine.

WHISENTON: OK. So that’s 20, 85, and 45. $150 is your balance here today.

Lucas Evans pays the treasurer.

KEYERA LUCAS EVANS: There you go. Thank you ma’am.

It’s not easy for all of the students at Tech and their parents to come up with the money to pay for what can be a surprisingly large four-year debt of old lost textbooks and library books. 

So to make it a little easier on them, Whisenton says she came up with a payment plan.

WHISENTON: They can pay me $5 a month, $10 a week, or whatever choice. When they get a little extra money ‘til they get their book paid off. So this year was the first year I did it, and it really worked with a lot of kids.

Still, Whisenton says the prom and yearbook are so expensive, some kids get left out.

WHISENTON: Some kids it’s just really hard and I try to find some work-around here to cut the price.

That can be a big help for students like senior Shamaya Nicholson, who’d like to go to prom but have trouble affording it.

SHAMAYA NICHOLSON: Honestly, I don’t know because me myself personally, already living from check to check so just getting all the money together is a hassle.

Nicholson says she’s tried to find work, but she hasn’t been successful. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, teen unemployment rates are running at about 26%, the highest since 1948. For Black teens the unemployment rate shoots up to 35%.

NICHOLSON: Every time I get an interview I don’t get a call back. Then when I call them back, they say they’ll call back but I don’t get a call.

At least Nicholson is a graduating senior. Of the approximately 600 students who began their freshman year at Oakland Tech four years ago, only about 300 are still on the school’s rolls.

STACY HO: That graduating senior class is about 50% of what came in freshman year.

Stacy Ho is a counselor at Tech.

HO: And yes, I know they move... and what not happens between 9^th and 12^th grade, but it still can be improved.

Ho has been working to improve the school’s graduation rate and build upon the 80% of graduates who go on to college. This year, she’s held workshops, small seminars and a college fair with free pizza to encourage students to apply not just for college but for free scholarship dollars as well.

And it’s worked. Near the end of the school year, Tech held its Scholarship Awards Ceremony in the library.

HO (AT CEREMONY): A lot of our students win merit money and also financial need based money as well to cover. So whatever it is that they’ve earned of free money is what we’re celebrating here tonight.

One senior being celebrated is Joseph Bell. The 4.0 student applied for and won $5,500 in scholarships to attend UC Irvine next year.  His mom, Jean Smithson Bell, arrived a little early for the ceremony and is staring at her son’s senior class photo in the glass case outside the library.

JEAN SMITHSON BELL: We’re all so proud of him and he’s so low-key. Yeah, it’s okay. Yes, Joseph! Yes, Joseph! Yes, Joseph!

She says Tech’s engineering academy has been the perfect learning environment for her son, so when it came time for the academy’s class trip to Washington DC with it’s $2,500 price tag, she couldn’t say "no." She decided to pay the $2,500 cost the only way she knew how: with a bake sale.

SMITHSON BELL: So between Thanksgiving and Christmas of this year we baked 60 pies and sold them to get my kid the money for the trip. So I’m really excited about him.

A few days later, Treasurer Rose Whisenton is back in her office. Her phone is giving her no peace, nor are the seniors lined up outside her door.

A father steps up to her desk. It’s Rock LaCrosby - Autumn’s father. Whisenton asks if he’s changed his mind and is going to let his daughter go to the prom after all.

WHISENTON: How you doing? You change your mind? No. That would be disastrous.

They laugh and chat together while he makes out a personal check. 

ROCK LA CROSBY: In the big picture yeah, it’s a little debt. But considering we’re in a recession it’s big to my bottom line. But I’d pay it 10 times for this result, to be honest with you.

The prom is a memorable event for high school seniors. As is, of course, graduation. The economic challenges these students face inside the walls of Oakland Tech are a small sample of what they’ll face on the outside. And it’s a shame that even while they’re young every student won’t be able to afford the memories that can only be made in high school.

In Oakland I’m Nancy Mullane for Crosscurrents. 

Oakland Tech’s graduating seniors will get their diplomas at the Paramount Theater on Tuesday, June 15th.