POPLAR RIDGE - A group of students and parents are hoping the Southern Cayuga Central School District Board of Education will reverse a decision barring seniors who were caught breaking and entering into the high school from attending Saturday's graduation ceremony.

Parents and peers of 15 Southern Cayuga students - taken into custody for what Cayuga County Sheriff Rob Outhouse had deemed a prank that got out of hand - showed up at Monday's school board meeting to advocate for the upperclassmen. They asked board members to either allow the students to participate in the ceremony, or at least let them attend the ceremony to support their classmates.

Police initially caught three teenagers in the building and charged them with felony burglary. Others were charged in the following days.

Parents said Monday night that 10 students had been charged with felonies and five with misdemeanors - two of those charged were juniors at the school. Most of those charged have so far been ordered to perform between 40 and 100 hours of community service.

“We had no intention of doing anything destructive to the school itself,” said Joseph Doeing, who admitted forcing entry into the school. Doeing, who graduated from another school district, offered his apologies to the school board and to the school community.

Outhouse had acknowledged his office had received information that students were planning to break into the building June 8. Sheriff's deputies who convened at the school to set up a stakeout found several people already inside the building.

“It was a lapse in judgment,” Doeing said, adding that all students had wanted to do was remove desks from a classroom to a hallway, and then fill the classroom with balloons.

The board listened solemnly to the parents and teens who spoke up; board members said they'd “agonized” during a three-day deliberation before arriving at a decision to bar the students from attending their graduation ceremony. Still, school board president Theodore Rejman told the crowd they would deliberate further on their decision.

In other news:

* Prior to the public comment session, the school board had focused its energies on a presentation by two representatives from Atlantic Energy, which had reviewed the school buildings' current energy performance. Their recommendations: a projected $1.1 million overhaul of existing lighting systems - to standardize existing fluorescent bulbs, caulking and otherwise securing the building against future leaks, and upgrading the boilers in the high school, which representatives said were “running at the end of their useful life.”

The project's duration would run 18 years. Pending the board's approval the plan, which must still undergo review by the State Education Department, would see the district save a projected $61,921. The savings, said Atlantic Energy, would either be seen in kilowatt hours used, or - if energy costs go up - in a reimbursement by the company.

“We're just buying better mileage and the price of gas is going up,” said board member Edward Moscato.

The school board, however, agreed to spend more time determining the scope of the district's capital needs prior to approving Atlantic Energy's plan.

* Math teacher Jen Tonzi led four middle school students from grades 5-8 in presenting the results of the class's second annual Math-a-Thon, a fund drive that benefited the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Forty-seven students set to solving as many math problems as they could in a two-week period, raising $3,200 for research on pediatric cancer. The school has set a goal of involving 86 students next year, and raising $5,760 for St. Jude's.

* Michael Card, representing the Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES for the Central New York School Board Association, was on hand to formally thank outgoing school board members Edward Moscato and Bruce Hatfield for their service to Southern Cayuga schools.

* The school board deliberated a date change for its reorganization meeting, so all board members can be present. The reorganization meeting is currently set for July 10 at 6:30 p.m.

* The superintendent and the board reviewed a budget critique, assembled from responses to exit poll surveys conducted after the May 16 budget vote. Most of the people who completed surveys had praised the administration for being open and informing the public every step of the way about budgetary proposals.

* A panel will convene for a third time this afternoon to review and modify the district's code of conduct. The board plans to present the updated code at the next school board meeting July 10.

Staff writer Olivia Goldberg can be reached at 253-5311 ext 235 or at olivia.goldberg@lee.net