Students at John I. Leonard High School in Greenacres expected to go home with their diplomas on graduation day but instead were handed letters of apology.
Students received blank diploma covers when they marched at a ceremony Monday at Florida Atlantic University. At the end of the ceremony, they received letters explaining that Jostens Inc., a Minneapolis-based company that produces the diplomas, did not deliver them in time for graduation. They would have to contact the school later to pick them up.
“It was disappointing,” said Michelle Harangody, the school’s salutatorian. “You work so hard, and it’s your day, but it’s not complete.”
It’s the same story for thousands of graduates all over Palm Beach County. School district officials estimate that half of 24 high schools that have graduation ceremonies this month did not receive diplomas or diploma covers on time. About 10,000 students are graduating this year.
Other schools with diploma problems are Forest Hill High in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens High and Santaluces High west of Lantana.
Santaluces received diplomas for the 600 graduates on Sunday morning, just a few hours before commencement, Principal Glenn Heyward said. But the school didn’t receive the diploma covers. Administrators had a stockpile of about 75 left over from previous years. Students were issued diploma covers but immediately turned them back in so they could be recycled to someone else.
“It’s embarrassing,” Heyward said. “We like our graduation to go very smoothly. We called weeks before and kept getting empty promises that they’d be shipped.”
Superintendent Art Johnson sent a letter to Jostens saying it was in default of its contract with the school district. The school has paid the company $117,000 during the past four years, district spokeswoman Vickie Middlebrooks said.
Rich Stoebe, a spokesman for Jostens, said the problem happened after the company moved its diploma-cover and certificate plants from Minneapolis to Topeka, Kan., and Shelbyville, Tenn.
“We did experience some unexpected failures in the process as we got heavy into our season,” Stoebe said. “We’re working with schools to try to meet their individual needs. At the same time, we have a separate organization looking through our entire process to make sure we have a corrective action plan in place to prevent this from happening in the future.”
He said the company is sending generic diploma covers to schools for free to use until the customized ones arrive. The company also is using contractors and other manufacturing plants to expedite the graduation materials, he said.
Stoebe said other schools across the country are affected but wouldn’t name them or provide any numbers. Broward County also contracts with Jostens.
Keith Bromery, spokesman for Broward schools, said that so far, the company has been able to correct and FedEx diplomas in time for two graduation ceremonies.
But many of the documents had the wrong School Board member identified as head of the board.
“We’re not accepting substitutes,” he said. “So far, it has not affected us. So far, [the schools] are hopeful.”
But a “crush” of 12 ceremonies this weekend, followed by the remainder in June, may be too much for the company to handle, he said. In all, 15,000 seniors are graduating from Broward public and charter schools this season. If diplomas failed to arrive, Bromery said, the district would give students placeholder documents and mail the real ones later.
Then it would re-evaluate its future with Jostens.
Chelsea Pemberton, 18, is graduating Saturday from South Broward High in Hollywood and said it would feel “weird” to get a fake diploma after four years of hard work.
She hadn’t been warned of the possible last-minute switch.
“That’s crazy. It would bother me,” she said. “If you work for it, you should get the real thing. It’s more authentic that way.”
Scott Travis can be reached at or 561-243-6637.
