Friday, May 13, 2016

Dear Parents: Behave at Graduation

We're moving into graduation season and parents are understandably excited about the upcoming commencements. I, too, am excited for my son who will be finishing up his time in junior high and getting that 8th grade diploma before a much-anticipated summer break leading up to high school.

But with graduations comes a bit of dread, I must admit. You see, every single year the administration at the local junior highs and high schools asks that the crowd contain themselves as names are called and hold applause and screams of excitement until the end. It's done mainly so that every parent who is there has the pleasure of hearing their child's name called to invite them up for their diploma. Every year they insist that they'll enforce it. They threaten to remove out of control parents who disrupt the ceremony. They go as far as to have uninformed officers at ceremonies to remove disorderly attendees. But it doesn't happen. And everyone knows it won't happen. There are no consequences.

So, as they start calling names alphabetically, the parent of a student with the last name Adams shouts out a quick "Woot!" Then the name Calhoun is called and you hear longer cheers. A student with the last name Evans has a parent who screams and shouts a little louder. By the time you get to Johnson, it's an all-out free-for-all. Parents jump up and down shaking the bleachers, making shrill sounds that would shatter glass. By then the officers just smile and shake their heads. They can't remove them all.  They simply can't keep up. Sometimes the parents stand up, scream and shout and then leave on their own. They've seen what they wanted to see, so off they go.

So, it's just become acceptable to make a spectacle at a graduation ceremony and everyone else just has to accept it and put up with it. But, you know, it just plain sucks. Because by the time they get down to my son, with a last name that starts with an "S," I won't even be able to hear his name over the inconsiderate and ill-timed celebrations of other parents who disregard the rules. You've just spent years teaching your kids to follow rules at school and you can't get through an hour-and-a-half ceremony without breaking them.

I can think of a few ways to possibly reduce or solve the problem.
- Actually stop the ceremony and remove the first disruptive person so that it doesn't continue.
- Hold the diploma of the student whose parents cause a scene and have a waiting period before it will be released.
- Have parents sign off prior to the graduation that they'll pay a fine if in violation of disrupting the graduation.
- Have police enforce disorderly conduct charges.
- Or give in and allow an extra 10 or 15 minutes to the ceremony and give 4 or 5 seconds between reading names and let everyone do their clapping and cheering, so at least it's fair. Otherwise you have a good amount of the people patiently waiting and behaving themselves who have their evening ruined by a few dozen rude ones.

But, in my years of graduations for my own kids and covering them as a photographer and writer, I've yet to see a school that has figured out a way to avoid it or fix it - with the exception of the private school my oldest son graduated from for 8th grade where there were only eight kids in the graduating class.

So, I go into graduation season proud and excited - and also shaking my head at the inevitable and knowing the commencement will go from dignified and emotional to taking a sudden downhill turn to chaotic and insensitive and I'm not looking forward to that part at all.

No comments: