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Having difficulty understanding why school administrators seem incapable of learning or figuring things out with regard to commencement. Just attended our fourth (and final - hooray!).
It has been ten years, why can't they figure out the gymnasium is too small? Either issue a limited number of tickets to each student, or find a bigger place. It is not rocket science. Cramming 1200 people into a space that maybe seats 500 is dangerous and stupid and yet they do it year after year and act surprised at how many people show up even though the same number show up every year. (I do not know the actual numbers, just that there are roughly twice as many people crammed in there as the gym is capable of safely accommodating).
They print 300 programs for the 1200 people they know will show up. Is that so they can pretend to be surprised by the number of people there if the fire Marshall comes and shuts everything down?
9 Valedictorians, 2 salutatorians, class president, principal (x2), superintendent, and some guy I did not know who he was all gave long speeches.
First of all why are there 9 valedictorians? That makes the position meaningless.
Second why let them all speak? Why not have them present their speeches and pick the best one?
While you are at it, why not teach them some basic speaking skills so they do not get up and slur mumble and blendalloftheirwordstogetherintoasingleword? At the same time, teach the adult speakers how to speak and how to amend a speech on the fly so you do not get up and repeat what the previous speaker just said.
Also why no coordination or practice? Of the 15 speeches 14 of them were basically redundant and rote. Could have pulled their speeches off the internet. One was well done and amusing (she quoted someone who said "if you re not first, you are last," and then proceeded to explain that since there were 9 valedictorians, none of them were first and therefore everyone was last. She also thanked the kids in her class who let her copy the homework assignments when she forgot to do them, and concluded that if she could go back in time, she would have gotten slightly lower grades so she did nto have to give this ).
Then they all go to an all night party (which is not all night at all but ends at 2:30 a.m.). The adults think it is a genius idea that keeps the kids from going to drunken parties. The kids go because their parents think it is a great idea, but the kids mostly hate it. Parent chaperones go to keep an eye on things and listen in to the kid's conversations and make them uncomfortable. The highlight is a hypnotist who is mildly amusing to some of the kids. Mostly it is boring to them. The "good kids" just stand around talking and saying goodbye forever to the lifelong friends. They do not hate it quite as much. (Luckily my son is in this group) The other kids get through it by taking "Mollies" (not sure what this is, but it is on our company's drug screening panel - meaning those kids could not work for our company or many others).
They bore the kids and everyone absolutely to death with hours of endless speeches in a gymnasium so crowded and hot people are nearly passing out, then they put them on a bus and take them to an interminably boring five hour "party" where parents and teachers listen in to their conversations and try to engage them so the parents can demonstrate how cool and not old they are. Go from bored and sweltering for hours to bored and uncomfortable for hours it is not really a surprise half the kids are on whatever Mollies are.
Are all graduations like this now?
Are administrators/school board blind to all this?
Do they think this is the way is should be?
Perhaps they are just too busy and do not get paid to figure out how to make graduation tolerable for those involved?
Is there some reason they cannot understand 14 redundant speeches by people who have not been taught basic speaking skills is painful, awkward and embarrassing to everyone, especially the speakers?
Just fear of changing anything ever even if it does not work?
The logistics are always a puzzle to me. I don't know why they can't figure it out.
Public speaking is not a gift for most people, and these types of speeches are always a cliche. The exceptions are the clever students who try to be witty and sometimes cross a line or two with their hubris.
We recently attended an 8th-grade graduation where, after the 300+ names were all called individually and the students sat back down (which should have been the high point) the principal got up and spoke for 15 minutes about doing your best in high school. He should have trimmed it by 10 minutes and spoken BEFORE the kids got their certificates so everyone could leave after that. It was a squirmy, impatient way to end a pretty good event.
Most of my job involves attending meetings and hearing a TON of public speakers. I find that 90% of them speak WAY longer than they should and ramble more than they should. TIP: Don't spend 5 full minutes explaining why allergies have made your voice raspy or making a lame joke about putting on glasses. Half the world wears glasses. We get it. You need to see. Just put them on and go.
Frankly, I would worry about the level of education at a school where they made so many easily fixable errors at commencement.
Almost all the schools in my area have one valedictorian and one salutatorian no matter the size of the high school. And, I believe, that the few schools who have multiple students honored select just one to speak.
I can't believe that they are allowed to break fire codes. In my area, they usually send officials to large gatherings such as commencements to make sure that they are not over capacity.
And, not printing enough programs is just ridiculous.
Thanks for sharing your vent. Perhaps a letter to the editor of your local newspaper would be appropriate, too.
The Valedictorian question is the easy one, they had 9 kids with the identical highest GPA (I would say that's rare but I don't know how many kids were in the class. The most we ever had were 2 in a class of around 275. That happened a couple or three times over my teaching career). If the kids have identical GPAs you can't pick just one to be the Val.
The worst year was the one where our Valedictorian had a 3.2 GPA weighted with AP classes.
The number of people is also easy, maybe. Years ago graduation was for the kid and the immediate family. Now extended family members fly in from everywhere. We would allot 10 tickets per kid and invariably every year several would need 30 or 40. Luckily there were a lot of kids who had only their parents and maybe a grandparent or two attend so we could accommodate the overages.
I used to tell some kids that they were under no compulsion to invite their former next door neighbor's third cousin twice removed who they met when they were five years old.
Also, at least where I was, there is still a cohort, in 2018, there are kids, mostly male, who are the first one in their family to graduate from high school.
The Valedictorian question is the easy one, they had 9 kids with the identical highest GPA (I would say that's rare but I don't know how many kids were in the class. The most we ever had were 2 in a class of around 275. That happened a couple or three times over my teaching career). If the kids have identical GPAs you can't pick just one to be the Val.
The worst year was the one where our Valedictorian had a 3.2 GPA weighted with AP classes.
The number of people is also easy, maybe. Years ago graduation was for the kid and the immediate family. Now extended family members fly in from everywhere. We would allot 10 tickets per kid and invariably every year several would need 30 or 40. Luckily there were a lot of kids who had only their parents and maybe a grandparent or two attend so we could accommodate the overages.
I used to tell some kids that they were under no compulsion to invite their former next door neighbor's third cousin twice removed who they met when they were five years old.
Also, at least where I was, there is still a cohort, in 2018, there are kids, mostly male, who are the first one in their family to graduate from high school.
Our school does not weight AP classes. It is a straight 4.0 school. They typically have 4-10 4.0 students in a class of 160 - 180. My daughter's class had 12 Valedictorians (three hours of speeches!). I think they should pick just one. Look at AP classes, if that does not resolve it go to test scores, or some other metric. Maybe have the teachers vote. Have a competition. Choose the best speaker to speak.
They had 9 kids with a 4.0. 2 with a 3.98. 20 some with 3.97 down to 3.89. About forty with 3.89 down to 3.7 something. I do not remember the exact numbers but it seems like half the class had an A average.
The kids from our school seem to do extremely well both getting into top colleges and after college. They normally get awarded an immense amount of scholarship money for the class size (this year was down, $1.3 million, usually is it $2 - $3 million). So I am not sure they inflate grades as much as just having a ton of highly motivated overachievers. Still I do not see the benefit of having 9 valedictorians.
Some schools have commencement at nearby universities, or convention centers. Others (ours included) refuse and just cram people in. I do not know why the fire marshal allows this or why the administrators do something so stupid year after year.
I do not think we have many, probably not any, who are the first to graduate in their family (96.5% of the adults report as having graduated from high school).
However, interestingly, the overwhelming majority of the top students are women as are the overwhelming majority of scholarship recipients at our school. Gender is split almost equally in the school. I find it hard to deny this is proof the schools now teach to the girls needs and strengths rather than boys. Maybe all the boys are just messed up for some other reason. It has been this way year after year for at least a decade. Less than 20% and some years less than 10% of the top 50 students, and top scholarship awardees are male. Something is clearly wrong with our society, or at least our particular school system in this regard, but that is a different topic.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 06-01-2018 at 08:39 AM..
Our school does not weight AP classes. It is a straight 4.0 school. They typically have 4-10 4.0 students in a class of 160 - 180. My daughter's class had 12 Valedictorians (three hours of speeches!). I think they should pick just one. Look at AP classes, if that does not resolve it go to test scores, or some other metric. Maybe have the teachers vote. Have a competition. Choose the best speaker to speak.
They had 9 kids with a 4.0. 2 with a 3.98. 20 some with 3.97 down to 3.89. About forty with 3.89 down to 3.7 something. I do not remember the exact numbers but it seems like half the class had an A average.
The kids from our school seem to do extremely well both getting into top colleges and after college. They normally get awarded an immense amount of scholarship money for the class size (this year was down, $1.3 million, usually is it $2 - $3 million). So I am not sure they inflate grades as much as just having a ton of highly motivated overachievers. Still I do not see the benefit of having 9 valedictorians.
Some schools have commencement at nearby universities, or convention centers. Others (ours included) refuse and just cram people in. I do not know why the fire marshal allows this or why the administrators do something so stupid year after year.
One Val, picked by what metric (I don't even want to think about the lawsuits, and yes that's happened) or just one speaker (see previous about lawsuits)?
As far as AP classes go, if the standard is highest GPA then that's it. My school tried to do that one year when the Val had zero AP classes while the Sal had several, she just got Cs in them. Didn't work.
Let the kids each get two minutes, cut out the guest speakers.
For the underline, because they're Administrators. Plus parents would ***** about the cost.
One Val, picked by what metric (I don't even want to think about the lawsuits, and yes that's happened) or just one speaker (see previous about lawsuits)?
As far as AP classes go, if the standard is highest GPA then that's it. My school tried to do that one year when the Val had zero AP classes while the Sal had several, she just got Cs in them. Didn't work.
Let the kids each get two minutes, cut out the guest speakers.
For the underline, because they're Administrators. Plus parents would ***** about the cost.
There will always be idiot childish parents and lawyers willing to file anything to try to make a buck. If you make everyone Valedictorian, then parents will sue because their kid aced 16 AP classes while the kid who took only remedial classes but also got As shares the honor with them, or even if their kid aced 16 AP classes while another kid only took and aced 15. There is no policy that someone cannot figure out a way to decry as unfair and file a lawsuit. As long as there are people and lawyers, there will be specious lawsuits. Schools cannot build policy around the possibility of absurd lawsuits. If they did, they woudl just have to shut down.
Maybe they can just get rid of the valedictorian concept list 50 of them as valedictorian if they want to but only the class president gives a speech, or the winner of a speech competition gives a speech.
No speeches would be fine too. Especially if they are not going to teach basic speaking skills. Maybe some kid will sue because they were embarrassed by having to give a terrible speech without having any training in speaking or speech writing.
It certainly seems they will not have lawsuits any more if they get to the point where they have 20 or 100 valedictorians. No one will care because it will be meaningless. Personally, I think they are there already.
I find the OP's post very amusing. The things that are the most humorous usually actually happen and are real. You can multiply what you experienced many times over in graduations across the country.
With 9 valedictorians and an enormous amount of grades touching at 4.0 I can say with all confidence that your school like SOOOOO many others suffer from grade inflation just to keep parents happy and the administration safe. How many times have we all heard parents brag about their little Johnny or Judy being so smart that they get straight A's and never have to bring books home.
Honestly, I don't know how universities can sort out what students have learned at a true high level yet were graded fairly versus those that came from grade inflated systems where all the children are geniuses (or at least above average as Garrison Keiler used to state).
I find the OP's post very amusing. The things that are the most humorous usually actually happen and are real. You can multiply what you experienced many times over in graduations across the country.
With 9 valedictorians and an enormous amount of grades touching at 4.0 I can say with all confidence that your school like SOOOOO many others suffer from grade inflation just to keep parents happy and the administration safe. How many times have we all heard parents brag about their little Johnny or Judy being so smart that they get straight A's and never have to bring books home.
Honestly, I don't know how universities can sort out what students have learned at a true high level yet were graded fairly versus those that came from grade inflated systems where all the children are geniuses (or at least above average as Garrison Keiler used to state).
Actually that was one of my purposes in the post - is this typical?
Maybe that is why they weigh test scores so highly. At least they seem to.
Interestingly the kid in my son's class who got a 1590(ish) on the SAT, did not get all As and was not in the top 10. However he was accepted to every college where he applied.
I am not sure the kids are geniuses. However many of them are pushed hard by their parents and work very hard, take private lessons/tutoring etc. It is hard to identify grade inflation in that atmosphere.
I have to say we are guilty of that. My son's thing was trumpet. When he made the effort to work at it and became the best musician in the band by the end of freshman year, we scraped money together for private lessons and later for both classical and jazz lessons, and then for a fancy trumpet. It paid off in that he got a full ride scholarship for music (well, near full ride. 100% tuition and about 65% of room and board), but how many kids could also do that well if they had professional musicians for private tutors and got invited to play with professional bands during high school? Likewise I wonder how many kids would do equally well academically as our top students if they also had private tutors, math camp in the summer, parents with PhDs, and the like? I am not sure they are so much exceptional people as they are forced into exceptional performance.
Having difficulty understanding why school administrators seem incapable of learning or figuring things out with regard to commencement. Just attended our fourth (and final - hooray!).
It has been ten years, why can't they figure out the gymnasium is too small? Either issue a limited number of tickets to each student, or find a bigger place. It is not rocket science. Cramming 1200 people into a space that maybe seats 500 is dangerous and stupid and yet they do it year after year and act surprised at how many people show up even though the same number show up every year. (I do not know the actual numbers, just that there are roughly twice as many people crammed in there as the gym is capable of safely accommodating).
They print 300 programs for the 1200 people they know will show up. Is that so they can pretend to be surprised by the number of people there if the fire Marshall comes and shuts everything down?
9 Valedictorians, 2 salutatorians, class president, principal (x2), superintendent, and some guy I did not know who he was all gave long speeches.
First of all why are there 9 valedictorians? That makes the position meaningless.
Second why let them all speak? Why not have them present their speeches and pick the best one?
While you are at it, why not teach them some basic speaking skills so they do not get up and slur mumble and blendalloftheirwordstogetherintoasingleword? At the same time, teach the adult speakers how to speak and how to amend a speech on the fly so you do not get up and repeat what the previous speaker just said.
Also why no coordination or practice? Of the 15 speeches 14 of them were basically redundant and rote. Could have pulled their speeches off the internet. One was well done and amusing (she quoted someone who said "if you re not first, you are last," and then proceeded to explain that since there were 9 valedictorians, none of them were first and therefore everyone was last. She also thanked the kids in her class who let her copy the homework assignments when she forgot to do them, and concluded that if she could go back in time, she would have gotten slightly lower grades so she did nto have to give this ).
Then they all go to an all night party (which is not all night at all but ends at 2:30 a.m.). The adults think it is a genius idea that keeps the kids from going to drunken parties. The kids go because their parents think it is a great idea, but the kids mostly hate it. Parent chaperones go to keep an eye on things and listen in to the kid's conversations and make them uncomfortable. The highlight is a hypnotist who is mildly amusing to some of the kids. Mostly it is boring to them. The "good kids" just stand around talking and saying goodbye forever to the lifelong friends. They do not hate it quite as much. (Luckily my son is in this group) The other kids get through it by taking "Mollies" (not sure what this is, but it is on our company's drug screening panel - meaning those kids could not work for our company or many others).
They bore the kids and everyone absolutely to death with hours of endless speeches in a gymnasium so crowded and hot people are nearly passing out, then they put them on a bus and take them to an interminably boring five hour "party" where parents and teachers listen in to their conversations and try to engage them so the parents can demonstrate how cool and not old they are. Go from bored and sweltering for hours to bored and uncomfortable for hours it is not really a surprise half the kids are on whatever Mollies are.
Are all graduations like this now?
Are administrators/school board blind to all this?
Do they think this is the way is should be?
Perhaps they are just too busy and do not get paid to figure out how to make graduation tolerable for those involved?
Is there some reason they cannot understand 14 redundant speeches by people who have not been taught basic speaking skills is painful, awkward and embarrassing to everyone, especially the speakers?
Just fear of changing anything ever even if it does not work?
Graduation is less than hour here n
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