Posted on 06/07/2007 5:37:10 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Diploma Saga Takes Turn - Denied Students Lawyer Up
GALESBURG, Ill. (June 7) - Five students will get the diplomas they were denied when cheers erupted for them at a high school graduation, and school officials said Wednesday they would review a get-tough decorum policy.
The school imposed a no-cheering policy in an effort to restore decorum at its graduation ceremony.
Galesburg High School officials had said they would not hand over the keepsake diplomas unless they received apologies. But the stalemate over the diplomas and the media attention it attracted have taken valuable time and energy, they said.
Gayles listens to a question from a reporter Tuesday. An attorney took the students' case this week and threatened to sue the school district.
"It is time for the good of the community, the school district, the families and the students involved to move on," Superintendent Gene Denisar said in a written statement.
The diplomas were withheld because the school said cheering violated a school policy aimed at restoring graduation decorum. The students still were considered graduates on paper, but they didn't have a diploma.
Graduate Nadia Trent, second from right, said she's "just happy it's over." But she added, "it would have been better" if the school had apologized.
Graduate Nadia Trent, who picked up her diploma from the school secretary Wednesday afternoon, said she's "just happy it's over."
"If they would have apologized, it would have been better," said Trent.
Denisar cited talks with the Illinois State Board of Education, which has said it cannot support the district's decorum policy because it makes students responsible for behavior they cannot control, in explaining the decision.
The central Illinois school district about 150 miles southwest of Chicago will continue efforts to make commencement a "respectful and dignified occasion that all graduates and their families can enjoy," school board President Michael Panther said in statement. Officials did not say how they planned to review the no-cheer policy.
Peoria attorney Jeffrey Green, who took the students' case at no cost, sent a letter late Tuesday threatening to sue the district if officials did not apologize and deliver the diplomas by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
"They met with the families two or three times and had a chance to get this thing right," Green said. "I've been involved less than 24 hours, and now they have their diplomas, so you draw your own conclusions."
Parent Pam Kelley said she was disappointed that school officials did not apologize and that her daughter, Amanda, was handed the diploma by a high school secretary, not principal Tom Chiles.
"At least he could have come out and shook her hand and said congratulations," Kelley said.
And "are" and "our". :-)
"The article fails to mention that the reason this policy came about is that a graduation ceremony in 2005 was drowned out by whoops and hollers, setting off fights among spectators. Some parents complained they could not hear their child's name called."
Our once-marvelous nation continues to leave its Anglo-Saxon roots and become nothing better than a nation of classless, undignified third-worlders. My niece graduated from High School 7 years ago and I couldn't believe the din.
Most of it came from [ahem] the "lower-class" folks in the crowd. Like the ones in the example above.
'Nuff said.
There’s a lot of commotion at our tech college graduations, too. Yes, decorum probably would fit the occasion better. However, when families invest so much time, money and support in getting a family member through college, it’s so hard not to show that support as the graduate FINALLY walks across that stage! Especially older students that are grandmothers and grandfathers; by God, returning to school is NOT easy when you’re 50+ years old!
Good post!
“Did they ever learn respect?”
That’s the problem. The word “respect” has been co-opted and distorted by certain groups. The respect you speak of hardly exists anymore. IMO, the fundamental problem that a large number of our society’s problems can be traced back to. “Show me respect” now means “be intimidated by me” or “bend over backwards to please me”.
A very good post that is dead on.
Would you be any less proud if you didn't have the backdrop of a graduation ceremony in which to whoop, holler and cheer?
Is it really the students' fault that people in the audience act like jerks? Of course, if the students themselves were being disruptive, by all means kick them out.
You've got that right. Everyone is a law unto themselves. I'll do what I want because I want too.
You concede that "decorum would be good," but then your logic doesn't follow.
If your family had scrimped and saved to afford dinner at the finest restaurant in town, would you then leave all your manners behind? Would you eat and behave like pigs, disturbing all the others in the restaurant?
There's no difference between the two scenarios. You're either respectful of others, or you aren't. Everyone else has sacrificed something to finish their education and obtain their degrees, why are you special?
When I was in grammar school, she started night school at the local community college. She and my father studied together. It had a fabulous effect on me. I overheard them discussing classics--Homer, Karl Marx--algebra, biology! It made me curious.
Years later, long after my father had died, she had only two courses yet to complete: chemistry and physics. She had no mind for science or math and was terrified that she could pass them. In fact, she flunked physics her first time through it.
I told her not to worry. I had studied physics and chemistry in high school; so I told her that the summer after I graduated from high school she and I would enroll together in college and that I would get her through them.
We did. We got an apartment in a distant college town (the local community college was only two years). Every night, just as my father had done, I would read a paragraph; then explain it to her.
She passed. She FINALLY graduated from college. She was thrilled.
Her mother and father were both college graduates, and she felt it a disgrace that she was not. Now she was!
I don't remember cheering. In fact I don't remember the ceremony. I think I was too exhausted myself. And, after a summer with Mom, I was ready for friends of my own.
Personally, I was very happy to have my family attend my graduation, and they remained silent as I walked across the stage. Which is how I preferred it myself.
No one is more special than another. I just can’t bring myself to get bent out of shape over this.
That’s wonderful! It’s a HUGE sense of accomplishment! Way to go for being there for her and way to go that she followed through and finished! :o)
The question is about decorum, and following rules to show respect for others.
When would you be upset? Would you be upset if cheering was so loud, you couldn't hear you child's name being read? What if the cheering family ran up to the podium and gave high-fives to graduate? What if the graduate broke out in a break-dance move, and prevented others from getting access to the presentation area? What if so many families cheered as their students received their diplomas, a one-hour ceremony was turned into three or four?
You can't rationalize rude behavior.
The school nazis finally lost this one, after showing how dictatorial they are.
Maybe not, but you know, right now I have more serious issues to deal with. So I’ll leave all this to folks like you.
I have boy/girl twins, who are just finishing 9th grade. Last year, I drew the straw to go to my son’s 8th grade “graduation.” He was in a gifted program, operated within a “general population” school. Graduation was combined for all 8th graders at the school. Sadly, for many in the “general population” this was the last graduation they would ever attend— until their children reached 8th grade. I almost could understand their whooping and hollering (almost). It was a clear display of no class by these kids’ families, many of whose father or uncles actually made it to the ceremony.
By the way, this was not a black phenomenon. Many white kids’ families reacted loudly as well, and my son’s black classmates’ families clapped in a dignified manner. I suspect, deep down, those kids with loud parents were embarrassed— I certainly hope so. I just shook my head.
My daughter’s 8th grade graduation was much more dignified, I am told, but the demographics there are much different.
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