@axolotl No I complained that that parent had gone to the teachers (there’s three) and talked them into take graduation photos of each kindergartner with the one cap and gown on without informing any parents and giving them the option to opt out.
I don’t care if you want to dress your own kid up. I care if your dressing my kid up without permission
@tigeroffur Oh wow, this is not any better and still yikes lmao. That parent is so sweet to include all the kids besides their own in a fun quick little photo op normal parents would love!
@axolotl It's totally to each is own kind of thing. I know that the parents I spoke with were about 60% in agreement that they didn't want their kids to participate or thought it was silly as most had just done a pre-k graduation the year before.
If she had brought it to their award ceremony and offered it as an option, then that would have been great and a different story. Parents would have had the option to participate or not but ultimately it wouldn't have mattered it is against our schools' policy. I think it has to do with the 5th graders getting a promotion not graduation so none of the other grades get graduations.
With a year of perspective, I'm sure some of my reaction was due to the fact she cornered me and my daughter in a classroom and wouldn't let us leave even after her husband was begging to leave, screaming at me that she could do whatever she wanted and physically got into my space when I retorted yeah with your kids but not the 89 other students that would be part of this and if she was going to pay for the treatments for every kid that got lice (you never know and we had a few girls with beautiful long hair that would have been a pain to treat) and I hate being involved in any kind of conflict. However, she tried to talk our current room parents into a bigger celebration (think full graduation ceremony walking across the stage with diplomas and everything) admin shut it down because those room parents went to admin.
@monkeym24 My kindergartener is having a graduation and I’m actually looking forward to it. Idk if I’m the problem, but I love this one! Idk if they have one every single year if I’ll be as excited
@keepwalking The typical sequence is pre-K/maybe K/5th grade/8th grade/HS where I live. I think the people saying it’s every single year are exaggerating (unless there are some places where they really are having 3rd grade graduations, but I doubt it).
@monkeym24 Maybe too European.. but we don't do this at all.... except a little bit hy the end of high school. Leaving higher education out of the discussion.
@monkeym24 Counterpoint, I VIVIDLY remember my kindergarten graduation fondly. I was proud to have my parents there (even though they also took off work in an era where that wasn’t tolerated as well. I remember my little cap and felt soooo important. I also remember proudly showing my parents around the classroom afterwards AND the celebratory meal we had. Now that I think about it I also remember my prek one and how excited I was to wear a fancy dress (PINK with a puffy skirt and rhinestones).
Sometimes as parents we need to remember that it’s not all about us and what seems inconvenient and stupid to us means the world to our kids.
@monkeym24 That’s great that you could take your kid out for the day but for some families there is a limit to how much celebrating they are able to offer on their own. As long as it isn’t mandatory I don’t have a problem with them
@monkeym24 Learning how to do school is a huge accomplishment, especially with the new rigors of kindergarten. There was a thread about this recently, and my problem with all these graduations is that kids nowadays often can do the bare minimum at life and still get celebrated.
@sifiso Definitely an accomplishment! That being said, I don’t think finishing a grade is the same as “graduating.” In my mind, a graduation ceremony marks the successful completion of a degree program, not a grade. But maybe I’ve spent too much time in higher education and have just become a grouch about this topic.
@monkeym24 I hate graduation ceremonies… you sit for an hour and you only care about 30s of it. I think people just want to take photos for social media.
@monkeym24 In my children’s school district (they now grown) the policy was the students only graduate one time and that is high school. I found that to be appropriate. All of these graduations take away the importance of receiving a diploma.
@monkeym24 I thought I was the only Scrooge! Our neighborhood is littered with landfill-bound plastic yard signs in front of homes congratulating “grads.” The PTAs must raise a lot of money selling these. Don’t misunderstand me—I’m all for celebrating promotions and graduations—but this all seems so wasteful!
@firsthandsemiuniversalist They do make a lot of money! Our middle school PTO uses the lawn signs as a fundraiser - $25 for a sign, which pays for the 8th grade class trip, semiformal dance, and last day of school breakfast.
We got the sign for our kid because we didn't want her to be the only one of her friends without one.
Our neighborhood is littered with landfill-bound plastic yard signs in front of homes congratulating “grads.” The PTAs must raise a lot of money selling these. Don’t misunderstand me—I’m all for celebrating promotions and graduations—but this all seems so wasteful!