(Not actual student disciplined for waving)
Waving AND smiling! Obviously, a future enemy of the school system.
I’m convinced that we could skip every other type of story and concentrate on stoopid school crap and we’d have just as many posts as now. Here’s one about a school system that’s confused behavior at a funeral with graduation.
Warren HS Senior’s ‘Wave’ Gets Her Kicked Out Of Graduation Ceremony
TEXAS: A Warren High School senior was not allowed to walk across the stage to receive her high school diploma recently because she violated Northside Independent School District policy when she waved and pumped her fists in the air at the crowd.
“I was just walking and I looked up and I (waved),” she said. “And I just felt a tap on my shoulder.”
The tap was Medina’s cue to leave Saturday’s ceremony at the Alamodome.
“I’ll never forget her face,” said Michelle Medina, Samantha’s mother, about her daughter’s reaction to being asked to leave. “It hurts that she didn’t get to walk that stage. They took that away from us.”
Samantha said she pumped her hands in the air because she was proud of herself. She had been in danger of not graduating after she failed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge, or TAKS test, three times. The test is a requirement by the Texas Education Agency for graduation from high school.
According to Northside ISD policy, students must keep their hands by their side at all times and not bring them above waist level until they receive their diploma.
The school district handbook also states that “students who raise their hands above their waists for any reasons other than receiving the diplomas or shaking hands may be removed from the graduation ceremony.”
“She was twirling in the line,” said Northside ISD spokesman Pascual Gonzalez. “She was waving. She was not acting like she was instructed to.” Gonzalez said that Samantha will eventually receive her diploma.
But her mother said that she is “determined to do something about this.”
Geezee. I could see if she was carrying an AK-47 or something, but being happy she graduated? She didn’t disrespect anyone, or make some sort of political statement.
The administration has too much time on its hands. It should be concentrating on TEACHING THE YOUNGSTERS!!!
Jokes aside, maybe there’s a common thread linking her three-time failure of the TAKS test with her failure to follow the instructions that Pascual Gonzalez claims were given to the graduates. That common thread might be A.D.D.
The reason they aren’t supposed to raise their hands is so they don’t flash gang signs and start a gang war at the graduation ceremonies..
Sad state of affairs, but it’s a crappy place to live.
So, it couldn’t be that they only ban making gang signs?
jesus gary maybe the common thread for all of us is IED.
First off schools take things way to serious. But whose fault is that? Theirs? nope….
they are afraid of being sued. and why not? everyone sues everyone for anything now a days. So the schools get stupid on us becuase we give them no other choice.
you (gary) do have a point though. what is this gals GPA? maybe she just doesn’t have the discipline to know any better.
true she should have been warned. But lets be honest. all the people at the Sonic where she will be working will hear about it later.
Looks like its time for a War on hand gestures boys.. Whose gonna be the gang sign Czar?
re: her failing the TAKS tests. some people are just not good at those standardized tests. I know brilliant people who had trouble with their various certification tests.
but anyway, this is all just insane …
Only in Texas.
I have a nephew who is famous for being able, from a standing start, to do a forward flip.
He did this on the way across the stage to pick up his diploma in his High School graduation.
He did it again when he graduated from college.
In his graduation robes, I might add.
No one said or did anything about it, as far as I know.
She was the only one removed. All of the other students followed the rules and controlled themselves.
Don’t follow the rules and then whine about it. Wah wah wah. Maybe a lawsuit and then more stupid rules, maybe a contract to sign before graduation.
Everyone thinks they can do whatever they want in life and pay no consequences. Maybe she will have finally learned something in school.
Sounds like this girl was a moron. How can you possibly be in danger of not graduating from public high school?
Rob, we know she broke a rule. However, what your mind cannot apparently grasp is that the rule was asinine. What’s the point of a rule against waving to your parents?!
Sure, we should follow rules and laws. But when those rules and laws are arbitrary and obviously ridiculous, it’s our duty as citizens to complain about them.
If you want to live in a dictatorship, that’s fine. You probably voted for Bush and got your wish. But the rest of us in the blue states still believe that we have freedom from mindless oppression.
…Everyone thinks they can do whatever they want in life and pay no consequences. Maybe she will have finally learned something in school.
Comment by Rob — 6/6/2006 @ 5:58 pm
The lesson is how silly adults can be. There are consequences to this. All the graduates and their parents see what idiots are left running the schools. You think they do this so they won’t be sued? Guess again, I expect the parents to sue and seek healthy damages. And I expect them to win. Unless the School Board quickly apologizes and offers amends, they could be on the losing end. Things like this only cost the education system time and money better spent educating our children.
Something has got to be done about this. This is ridiculous. It seems like more staff in various schools are letting what little power they have get to their head. Personally speaking at my old High School the staff acted as if they were all part of a Global administration and we were all the misfit outcasts, lol.
C’mon… you’re spinning this story. She violated a rule against acting goofy on stage and, thus, did’t get to participate. Seems fair to me.
I remember when someone hooting and hollering when he got his diploma was cute because it usually was the class clown/idiot who barely made it. (It was an insider joke that even faculty smiled at because they were glad to see the guy go.)
But the last few graduations I’ve been to practically EVERYBODY screamed, hollered, did head stands, etc.
Talk about annoying! I’m glad it was banned.
Who gets to decide witch rules are asinine?
SN,
I’m a lifelong blue-stater. My mind can grasp plenty, but rules like this were put in place in response to incidents that pushed the limits. The rule doesn’t state “no waving at parents”, if you read the story above you’ll see that. EVERY other student followed the rules and were allowed thier moment when the time was appropriate. This seems like a rule to keep people with little common courtesy from disrupting the ceremony.
I think that there are plenty of rules and laws that are asanine, but I don’t violate them to show my disapproval.
It’s funny, you’ve got me voting for bush, then supporting dictators and mindless oppression, with a mind that is unable to grasp simple ideas. I’ve got to ask… are you a friend of, or related to this girl? Just curious ‘cuz you’ve taken it so seriously.
BTW, if you’ve never been to a graduation nowadays, they are huge events with thousands of people. We recently attended one that had to be held at the local football stadium, Edward Jones Dome. Trying to pull off an event of this size requires rules that limit self-expression so that they don’t deteriorate to a free-for-all.
#16 — “Who gets to decide witch rules are asinine?”
We do..and the public does. And common sense does. Or are you of the sort who thinks that a rule that, say, “the underwear should be worn on the outside” is just peachy?
Yes, in this country we can all say something is asinine if we view it such. Simple. Works. I like it.
John I personaly feel about 90% of our laws in this country are asinine. But I have learned to pick my fights. That said thank you for commenting on my comment two days in arow. This beats the time I got a letter in the WSJ. Thanks.
Rob has something there. Did anyone else notice that this ceremony was at the Alamodome? It turns out that the school http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Warren_High_School has ~3000 students. It’s reasonable to assume that about 700 of those are graduating seniors. When someone does something silly, is it more fair to wait for the crowd to settle down before reading the next name, or for the next person’s family to not hear his/her name?
The school where I teach just graduated 400 students. It took about 80 minutes, and the center where we held commencement told us that ours had been the shortest ceremony of the season.
We experienced our share of hollering, but mostly erred on the side of the next kid not hearing his/her name. Is that just?
Now, if it were a smaller school (say, a high school with 50 seniors), in that environment endzone dances on the stage might be “cute.”
Nobody can make an opinion on this story if they weren’t there. If she actually did nothing more than get excited about getting her diploma, then yes, the school overreacted, regardless of the rule. However, if she did other things, then maybe the school had a good reason to remove her.
Ever watch the Academy Awards? Ever see somebody get cut off for going beyond their allotted thank you speech time? Didn’t you mutter to yourself, “Whew! Good!”? Most rituals need regimentation. I could forsee kids doing the equivalent of a football end zone dance on stage and the whole proceeding lasting 6 hours. Forget it. I’d rather take my kid to a nice restaurant..
i graduated with that girl. she was in my government class and honestly she barely even came to class. our teacher almost failed her anyways for all her absences. i am not saying its not a stupid rule that we can’t be happy and be able to wave, it is stupid, but everyone knew the rules. they came to our classes a week before grad. and made it clear for us what we can and cannot do. they would send out letters in the mail with the rules. almost every senior meeting they would tell us the rules. she will get her diploma eventually, but its not an body elses fault but hers.