Students meet with school officials who refuse to hand over diplomas

[Sequoia]

GALESBURG, Illinois (AP) -- Five students denied diplomas after cheers erupted when their names were called at a high school graduation emerged empty-handed Tuesday from a meeting with school administrators.

The students and their families met briefly with Galesburg High School officials at an administration building, but they were again denied the diplomas because no one apologized to school officials for the cheers at the May 27 ceremony.

The students in the central Illinois town about 150 miles southwest of Chicago will still graduate and receive their transcripts, even if they don't receive the keepsake diplomas.

School officials withheld the diplomas because they said the cheering violated a school policy aimed at restoring graduation decorum. Officials told the five female students and their parents Friday that they would hand over diplomas if they received apologies -- even anonymously.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/06/05/graduation.decorum.ap/index.html

Stupid adults. I hope the parents sue this school.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. That's really asinine.

Since when is cheering for academic accomplishment a bad thing?! We'd be a lot better off if there were MORE cheering for academic accomplishments!

[Cronus Protagonist]

18. True, and that will educate the kids more than the actual courses

I think overall, by displaying their foibles and wallowing in their fetishes, the administrators are exemplifying the kind of shit the students will encounter on the job. So I think this is good training, despite the nasty intentions of the administrators.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. ?????

The students are being penalized for what OTHER people did? Are they expecting apologies from the 5, or from the cheerers?

I always thought that grad ceremonies were a crock - the students have to pay for their cap and gown and ring and diploma...Oh, the STUDENTS pay for the diploma. The school is withholding the students' property.

Geeze.

[CoffeeCat]

3. Graduation should be a celebration...

Just exactly where do these "school officials" think they are....at high tea?

[gratuitous]

4. Sad

My own high school graduation (had to dodge the mastodons to get into the tribal lodge) was marked by similar administrative overreach. The class the year before had acted up pretty well during the graduation ceremony: champagne corks popping, loud talking and laughing during speeches, raucous displays from the graduation class and the stands of onlookers, and so forth. Our group cheered exactly twice: for one guy who graduated with us despite being in a serious car accident the year before, sustaining a very bad closed head injury whose recovery entailed learning how to walk and talk again; and when Tim Z.'s name was read (the last graduate, alphabetically). And we damn near got in trouble for that.

Sometimes school administrators act like little martinets, ruling their petty little fiefdoms in the most repressive way possible. Punishing five graduates for what other people did when their names were called puts the Galesburg folks right up there with Dean Wormer from Animal House and whatshisname from The Breakfast Club.

[woodsprite]

5. Our daughter was told the same at her charter school.

She graduates from 8th grade on Friday. She said she wished everybody in the audience stood up and made some noise. She thinks the rule is unfair and she doesn't think they'd penalize everyone. It is a good school, but I'm glad we're done with them.

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. Geez! Another authoritarian school administration

trying to take a final "We'll make an example of you!"

First of all, the "diplomas" are purely symbolic keepsakes. They have no official status, but these asswipes are choosing to use them as tools to wield their so-called power and authority. :eyes: It sounds to me like these administrators aren't getting any respect, and it's pulling crap like this that deserves them none!

[SheilaT]

7. The reason for these rules

is that too many times graduating classes or their well-wishers have crossed the line, such as poster number 4 describes. Although one person's crossing the line is, admittedly, someone else's appropriate response.

However, no matter how egregiously anyone may have crossed the line, the school administrators have no right whatsoever to withhold diplomas. Unless they've actually included behavior at graduation as one of the requirements.

[DonP]

11. I kind of understand

I didn't get to hear my daughter's name read when she received her diploma and her honors were read, because the family of the 2 students in front of her did the whole air horn - screaming thing. It was really annoying and rude to the rest of us and our family.

She worked as hard as everyone else did and was entitled to have her name read aloud and her honors cited.

The only alternative is to make the ceremony several more hours longer than it already is and let every graduate stand there for a few minutes until the noise dies down, then call the next graduate.

The school didn't say they couldn't celebrate or hoot and holler, they just asked everyone to wait, out of respect for all the graduates and their families, until all the names were read and all the graduates honored.

The school sent several notes home, including one that the parents signed and returned agreeing to the graduation behavior rules that specified that the diplomas would be withheld if the graduation was dirupted. Sorry guys but I don't think what they did is all that weird.

Even though they read and signed the agreement, they just didn't think the rules applied to them and they could ignore the other parents and graduates.

They all graduated and they can get there diplomas with 8 hours of community service work or some such.

Anybody have a better alternative? 8 hour plus graduation ceremonies? Take pot luck on whether you'll actually get to see and hear your kid graduate? Skip the whole thing and just mail them to everybody?

[Mist]

12. Yes, they'll mail them--I despised school and I tend to despise self-conscious

ceremonies. I didn't attend our graduation and got the diploma a few days later in the mail.

[Freddie Stubbs]

14. The problem is that they are punishing the students for their family's' behavior

How can you expect an 18-year-old kid to control the behavior of his adult parents?

[DonP]

15. The kids signed the agreement too

About the only real control the school has over the parents was holding the diploma issue over their heads.

From what i can tell the kids had the matter discussed in several pre-graduation assemblies and the reasons for the rules were explained to them. The graduatesy had to sign the same agreement their parents did.

Technically the parents/families were the guests of the graduating students at the event. If you have a party and one of your guests gets drunk, gets out of hand and puts a brich through the neighbors window the cops are going to haul you down to the station too.

The kids should be PO'd at their parents more than anyone else about this. They were the ones that screwed it up for them.

It was pretty simple overall.

1. Here are the rules everybody.

2. Here is what is going to happen if you or your guests break the rules.

I guess I'm just a lone cranky old coot here but I don't think the school was all that weird about what they did and I still haven't seen any better alternatives for the problem.

[Cronus Protagonist]

19. There's a line?

News to me. I just read about the agreement right now. My opinion has changed. I see jail time in the kids futures. :P

[Bluzmann57]

8. Just heard on a local newscast.

"the school district has until 5 PM today to hand over the diplomas or be sued by lawyers of the students."
I live about 50 miles from Galesburg, home of Knox College which has some of the greatest commencent speakers in America; Colbert last year and Bill Clinton this year. Also home to Carl Sandburg and site of at least one Lincoln-Douglas debate. Now the home of stuffy school administrators. Just a thought here: What if the people cheering were poor and the grads were the first in their families to graduate from High School? That is a possibility. If that is the case, let them hoot and holler. It is an achievement.
link. www.kwqc.com Scroll down a bit and it will be on the left side of the page. "Galesburg Diploma Controversy Continues" or something like that.

[lapfog_1]

9. Our wonderful new "zero tolerance" society at work.

getting closer to the "Beyond Thunderdome" Bartertown all the time.

"Break a deal, face the wheel"

[DKRC]

10. Here's the contact info for the school -

Email directory for the staff:

http://www.streaks.org/email.html

And the school phone # [phone]

I hope the parents do sue them. These punitive putzes need to know that this kind of vindictive gotcha won't fly.

[EST]

13. Okay, I'm ready...

Although there is little to be gleaned from the paucity of actual objective information in this case and making any sort of determination from that tiny bit of subjective information is always risky, I am going to have to side with the school "ethics police" on this one-until further information, of course.

The following caveats apply, however-
Is this a long standing school policy, one which is grounded in reason and applicability?
Were the students aware of the policy and its goals?

The problem, as I see it, is the selective application of the policy: the students for whom the cheering erupted, unless there were obvious previous plans made that they'd agreed to, are being made to accept punishment for the actions of others-bad and wrong headed.

The school officials are, in fact, the appointed parenting figures, in the absence of the parents whose students attend the school, therefore those officials have to make and enforce policies that go toward the management of the entire student body-the extended family, as it were. Most children and young adults do not understand policy and why it applies to them, whether that policy is one of the immediate family or the "in loco parentis" atmosphere of the education system.

If those students wish to become responsible adults, it behooves them to find out why, what, when and how it can be remedied when they find themselves at odds with "policy."

When I was in high school, we had some problems on my school bus. There were disruptive individuals to whom school was little more than a boring distraction, but to me school was a place to learn as much as I could, to learn how to acquire even more education and to prove I had done so.

Our bus, in a rural, mountainous area, was essential. The bus driver had done all he could to control the unruliness of the disrupters, so the school administrators called us to the auditorium and advised us that our bus was canceled-a major problem for people like me, since I lived farther from the school than anyone else and was in constant pain from early onset arthritis.

I was well known as a good student with strong motivation and was well behaved, so I took it upon myself, rather than whine about the unjustness of it all, to meet with the school administrators, along with a couple other like minded students, and present the case that punishing all of us for the misdeeds of a few was simply wrong.

We explained that we had done what we could but that was rather limited and it should be up to the administration to identify the miscreants and lower the boom on them instead of taking the easier route.
They saw the logic, restored the bus, had another meeting wherein they pointed out their reasons and the movers that had gone to bat to save us all and threatened nastier punishment in the future. This was an adult thing to do and any sixteen year old is capable of doing something similar, although it may not be common.

One other thing - an ancient wise man once told me some of the secrets to life and one of those secrets is, "apologize immediately, especially when you are right!"
Accepting responsibility for doing what is necessary to correct a bad situation, even if it is fundamentally unfair, is an adult thing to do and these students apparently failed the test.

I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but that's the way I see it.

[KatyaR]

17. I disagree.

If those students wish to become responsible adults, it behooves them to find out why, what, when and how it can be remedied when they find themselves at odds with "policy."

How can they be found "at odds with policy" when they weren't the ones who violated it in the first place? It's ridiculous to hold a student responsible for something some in the audience did. If there were 5,000 people there, that's 4,999 chances that someone will do something to violate this stupid policy.

I understand the concept of pushing everyone for the actions of a few--when I was in the 8th grade, the 9th graders were taken on an end-of-the-year trip to OKC to the zoo or the amusement park or something as a celebration of entering high school the next year. A few boys who had motorcycles decided to forge notes from their parents and skip the trip so they could cruise around town all day. A couple of them were in an accident, and one of them was in a vegetative state for several months before he died. So no more 9th grade trips. Of course, this was 35 years ago and a smaller school district (about 150 in 9th grade), and it was someone's LIFE we were talking about, not a piece of paper, so I think they were well justified in canceling the activity.

I hope they sue the hell out of them. Graduation is a time for celebration. If certain persons were causing real problems, then they should have dealt with those persons and not punished the entire community for the actions of a few. If I were one of those parents, I'd be furious.

The graduation issue in this part of the state has been underage drinking at private residences. Apparently several cities around OKC have passed "social ordanance" laws which allow the property owners to be arrested for having underage children drinking alcohol, even if they didn't furnish it. On one hand I agree with the idea, but on the other hand, when I was in college a friend's parents allowed us to party on New Year's Eve at their home because we would be safer there than on the streets (but we weren't peeing on the fencepost, either, which is what the police found when they arrived at one home last month). It's a $500 fine or 60 days in jail.

Protecting your kids is one thing, but punishing them for something like this is ridiculous.

[HuffleClaw]

16. so, all i would have to do to deprive another student of their diploma is have my friends clap...

when their name comes up? wow, what an easy way to get even with someone. what IDIOT administrator thought up this policy? what a clusterfuck.