@kieshabowles Oh I'd be big mad about this. Like posting on school forums and showing up at school board meetings pissed. It's bad enough everything else's they want you to pay for but to insist you pay$25 for a cap and gown your kid is gonna wear 1 time or they can't participate? In preschool? Nope. That's just rude. I'd be the parent getting all the other parents to skip it and do our own graduation. When I was in preschool we had paper hats (that we made with the teachers help) and we wore an oversized cheap t-shirt we got from the craft store for like $1.50 all the kids were assigned a color so we looked like a rainbow. It was adorable.
@kieshabowles Went to my kiddo’s pre-k graduation today. They didn’t make us pay for the gowns - just took pictures with it. We got to sit on those dinky seats…hubs is 6’4. It was quite the site with his knees somewhere near his head. I got lots of pictures and felt mom-shamed because I didn’t have flowers.
@kieshabowles This seems unusual. Our preschool and kindergarten here reuse the same set every year for photos.
For my 8th grade graduation we didn’t have gowns, just nice clothes. High school is the only time I had to buy the cap and gown and I passed on my cap and gown to someone graduating the next year.
I say this as someone who graduated high school in 2017. I think your pre-K is ripping you off OP
@rimuelbathan Frankly for both my kids I'm paying less than what my friends in richer areas (but only 5-10m away) are paying for one; so while I'm pretty angry when stuff like this happens, the delta even with all these little cuts is still huge. I'm more mad about the waste than the cost. We've all just become so used to buying crap just to throw it away.
@monkeym24 Kindergarten + 5th grade + 8th grade were actually not uncommon "graduations" even in the 90s! They weren't quite as widespread, but they definitely weren't unheard of. It does say something that most of us don't remember them though, so I don't think it's going to be traumatizing to skip them or pull your kid out for the day and do something else if you want.
@ayleeann I believe I finished kindergarten in 1992 or 1993, and our graduation was the teacher sprinkling glitter on our heads. I recall mom being pissed because it wouldn't come off my scalp for MONTHS so I always sparkled