Founder of Swim4Elise and 2019 Tastemaker Lori Cerami traveled to Austin this week to stand up for a cause she cares about deeply. On Tuesday, May 7, she spoke in front of the Texas Senate Education Committee on House Bill 638, which concerns posthumous diplomas for grieving families.
Lori became aware of this cause in the fall of 2017 when she found out about House Bill 1563, which states the protocol of posthumous diplomas in the current education code. Because of its standing verbiage, grieving families would receive a posthumous diploma for their child if he or she was in grade 12. Lori saw this and wanted to put in the work to remove the senior implication.
Lori says that Elise had already been planning for her academic future. After graduating from Carroll Senior High School, she spoke about venturing on to receive her bachelor’s degree and then a law degree.
“Before Elise passed away, she was very specific about her dreams and her plans to accomplish them,” Lori says. “Elise wanted to be a patent attorney. She planned to get her engineering degree from Texas A&M and her law degree from SMU.”
To honor that plan, Lori’s friends and family reached out to all three school systems to see if they would honor Elise’s designated path. In October 2017, A&M granted Elise an “Honorary Aggie Certificate.” They also honored her at the Muster in April 2018. SMU followed suit and gave the Cerami family an “Honorary Mustang Certificate.” When a family friend reached out to the Carroll school district about Elise’s posthumous diploma, they reached out to the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) for direction.
TASB referred to their Policy Reference Manual, which states: “Beginning with students enrolled in grade 12 during the 2005–06 school year, and on request of the student’s parent, a district shall issue a high school diploma posthumously to a student who died while enrolled in the district at grade level 12, provided that the student was academically on track at the time of death to receive a diploma at the end of the school year in which the student died.”
And Lori says she was told that providing an empty chair at graduation was the current practice for public schools in the state.
“The idea of an empty chair left us feeling empty,” Lori says.
So she met with Texas State Representative Giovanni Capriglione in December 2017 to learn more about the process of changing the current law. The edits they made later became House Bill 638.
Fast-forward to earlier this week when Lori shared her and Elise’s story with the Senate Education Committee. She sat before the elected officials and told them what her diploma would mean to her family and her daughter’s memory.
“Every person we met in Austin appreciated hearing Elise’s story,” Lori says. “The entire process has provided a path of healing.”
House Bill 638 passed in the Texas House of Representatives earlier this year and is now headed for the Texas Senate floor. Lori hopes that it will pass in time for Elise’s class’s graduation in May 2020. But she also hopes that these measures will positively impact families across the state.
“It would provide our family with a significant piece of Elise’s journey and it could set a precedent for other grieving families,” Lori says. “Elise valued her life and she valued the lives of those around her. It would be a pretty amazing legacy for Elise to leave behind.”