Why Not Learn As Much As Possible?

Every year, seniors at our school are required to plan and prepare an exit interview. There are required slides and topics, and they must bring parents and trusted adults. Failure to meet these requirements, we tell them, will result in being banned from graduation ceremonies. While positive in spirit, this structure is failing to provide accurate assessment of our students and our effectiveness as educators. By making exit interviews voluntary and removing excessive structure, we would get a more authentic and valuable assessment of both student capabilities and our schools’ effectiveness.
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In the professional world, exit interviews are very different. When employees leave a role, they're invited—not required—to share their experiences. Their choice to participate and their level of engagement reveals the true nature of their relationship with the institution. Do they reject the invitation? Do they show up with prepared material? This valuable information emerges only because participation is voluntary. In our school, we lose this insight by coercing students into participating through graduation requirements.

Our excessive scaffolding—required slides, artifacts, topics, and family participation—further limits our view of students' true capabilities. While scaffolds have their place, they're inappropriate in evaluation because they mask actual abilities and values. When we dictate exactly what and how students must present, all that we really learn is how well they follow directions! 

I propose eliminating both the graduation requirement and all but the essential structure of exit interviews. We would provide only a date and time, making it clear that the format and content are entirely up to the students. This approach transforms the interview from an obligation into an opportunity—a chance for students to be celebrated and demonstrate their learning in ways meaningful to them. By making participation voluntary, we would gain valuable insights into how students value us and our school. By letting them choose the content, we could learn what they found most important in their educational journey.

The stakes are real because every year we have only one chance to hear from our graduating class about their experiences—to truly understand what it’s like to be a student at our school. By forcing participation and dictating content we limit what we can learn about our students. By trusting our students to show us what matters to them, we'll not only learn more about their capabilities but also gain insights about ours. Why wouldn’t we learn as much as we can?