Honor student's diploma withheld because crowd cheers for her

My high school diploma is on a shelf in my closet along with my nursery school diploma, middle school diploma and college diploma (yes I'm a pack rat and my wife hates it).

 

It's a horrible situation and what the administrators did sucked. Had I been the kid I would have stood (or sat) on the stage until they had the police drag me away - or until they gave me my diploma, whichever came first - and then I would hope that my parents or friends would cheer at every name called after mine.

 

This is wrong on so many levels, but mostly because one person is being punished for actions she didn't do.

Fucking assholes.

 

procrastination

 

My school gave us these what I thought were our diplomas in a small case during the ceremony. Except they were empty. They made us go back into the school (graduation was in the football stadium) afterwards to get the actual diploma. This was supposed to be their insurance to make sure we all behaved ourselves.

Like anybody who was going to be a jerk at graduation would give a shit?

I agree that in the same situation, I would have raised hell right there on the stage. You want to talk about disruptions? I'll show you what a disruption really is.

 

We got a blank paper, scrolled up. We didn't get our HS diploma until we turned in out gowns.
The lovely University of Maryland, College Park, didn't give our diplomas until weeks after graduation, in the mail, after you paid your outstanding parking tickets.

 

See, you're looking at it 10 years or whatever it is removed from that moment. She's in that moment right now. She's 17, 18 years old. That diploma might not mean that much to her 10 years later, when she's got a bachelor's and a master's from wherever, but it means a lot to her now. Try telling her it doesn't matter right now.

Yeah, there are rules. But damn, why punish this honors student when it wasn't her actions that ruffled feathers?

 

I remember when administrators were more worried about kids drinking during the ceremony. No cheering? No applause? Is there a First Amendment case here?
I can't believe the "zero tolerance" thing, a contract? Don't schools have more important work to do than this kind of stuff? It scares me that people like this are shaping young minds.

 

Better link

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-graduation05jun05,1,45220.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed


I read a different story that included the information that air horns and noise makers were brought to these graduations. With all of the cheering going on for one student (standing up, waving arms and screaming), the 2-3 following students were not able to hear their name called. Some parents were not able to see as well because of the standing parents. It aid near fistfights broke out in the crowd between people. So these parents are not totally free of guilt.

That all said, the admin used the term "zero tolerance." This is the worst expression in education today. Would Bill Walton have played four years at UCLA if Coach Wooden used zero tolerance? The correct thing to do would have been to read the names one at a time, and then he needed to wait until the loud people stopped yelling until the next person's name was called. If the graduation lasted five hours, so be it. I doubt the yelling people would have had the energy to go that long yelling. Oh, any idiot who brings a noise maker to a freaking graduation has no idea what is going on at a graduation. They probably never saw anything past 10th grade anyway.

 

Pay attention to how much time and effort goes into naming a school, or if any idiot tries to hang a cross or the Ten Commandments in a public school.

You think this is wasting time?

 

Let me be the first person on this thread to offer hearty congratulations to the school board.

My high school graduation was an absolute zoo. I mean, it was mass freaking hysteria.

A name would be called and then there would be 30 seconds of screams, air horns and baby mommas shrieking from the rafters... You'd miss the next five names before the din died down.

I'm sorry that Kaiesha is being punished for her family's bad manners. But maybe she shouldn't have invited them if she couldn't trust them to follow the very simple rules of decorum required by the school.

 

THAT'S.HER.FAMILY. It would suck to not have your family at graduation.

If the family was so loud, you don't punish the student. You get someone to go up there and tell them to quiet down or leave.