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This year, graduation has become a battleground for some school officials and students. With schools tightening restrictions on who gets to walk, seniors are fighting for their rights in the last hours of their high school careers.
Take 17-year-old Chelsey Ramer. Her private school, Escambia Academy, is holding the Alabama grad's diploma and transcripts until she pays a $1,000 fine—all because she hung a lone eagle feather alongside her cap’s tassel during her May 23 commencement ceremony.
Other recent incidents seem just as extreme: In Tennessee, honors student Austin Mendoza was banned from his graduation ceremony after he missed a mandatory rehearsal because he had to go to work to help pay for college.
Having strict policies is a trend that’s been building for a while, though, as 2012 also brought a rash of pushed-out graduates—including Justin Denney, in Maine, whose superintendent sent him back to his seat with no diploma after he impulsively bowed and blew a kiss to his family. "There was no misbehavior. Showboating is not misbehavior," his mother, Mary Denney, had told WMTV News 8. "A bow, a kiss to your mom is not misbehavior. There was no need of my son not getting his diploma."
Also last year, in Cincinnati, high school senior Anthony Cornist was denied a diploma after his family’s “excessive” cheers apparently disrupted the graduation ceremony at Mt. Healthy High. "I will be holding your diploma in the main office," read a letter from principal Marlon Styles, Jr., "due to the excessive cheering your guests displayed during the roll call." He then demanded 20 hours of community service from Cornist, who told the news station, “I did nothing wrong except walk across the stage.”
And then there was Kaitlin Nootbaar, the valedictorian of Oklahoma’s Prague High School, who dared include the word “hell” in her speech. As a result, the school held back her diploma and demanded an apology. “She earned that diploma. She completed all the state curriculum,” her father, David Nootbaar told KFOR-TV news. “In four years she has never made a B. She got straight A’s and had a 4.0 the whole way through.”
Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by CIAGypsy
I've made it clear on more than one occasion with my Son's school when they have gotten out of line, they can persist in their efforts and regret it or they can cease their efforts and do the right thing. Up to them. I've yet to have to follow through with them...but it sure as hell isn't a bluff.
Regret how you may ask? Well, how would this principle like to spend a fair part of the next school year as the defendant in a 6 figure civil lawsuit named as a direct individual? Don't make the threat if you can't or won't back it up...because they may call it. They came very close ...as in, I was going to file the papers that day...with doing it on me. I think they finally realized, I really had NO humor or bluff in me when I make a statement like that and backed down. They sure didn't back down with snide remarks and cute little threats like that though, and that's where I think the difference is. They knew by that point, they'd be served by the end of the week for the lawsuit if they so much as made a nasty face in my direction.
They aren't Gods, they don't have authority outside the property they work at and that's a pathetic degree of authority as it is. To the kids and parents who allow it? They can and DO work as masters of intimidation and I've sure seen some real clever methods in my years with my Son in this district. They really are professionals at intimidation. You just need to remember that limit to their authority and don't let the game get going in the first place.
Hold the diploma? lol.. Okay..and how much in their life will be held up, over or Kaput for the legal fees they'll be into for a LONG time to come? (Oh..this can be drawn WAYYYYY out if one wants it that way, believe that)
If they carry through on their little threat? Bury their butts in Court. It's the ONLY language they understand and respect. They LIVE by fear and threats to everyone beneath them. They respond to NOTHING short of it.