Remy LaCroix
Lou Thesz' Favorite Son
^^^ Ain't nobody got no time for that! I'm reading this on my new television and holy fuck is that long. Eat your heart out, Ba-Bomb!
Another Student Denied Diploma
- Thread starter klunderbunker
- Start date
If I knew I didn't have to explain things in such detail for them to be understood, it would have been much shorter.
I read it. When someone it making good sense it makes a long post flow very easily. It didn't even seem that long to me. Once again Sly has made it unnecessary for me to post.
My mother being in the education system, and being over coordinating the graduations of my county each year I suppose I can shed a little light with her help.
The thing about graduations is they want them to be as classy as possible. They want you to be able to look back 30 years from now and think "Wow. That was a great moment. I worked so hard for my diploma, and walking across that stage is one of the greatest moments of my life."
They try to make it as fun as possible when it comes to rehearsals, project graduation (not sure if they do that everywhere), and in return they simply request that adolescents coming into adulthood act like adults for 2 hours.
This is a moment for the parents as much as it is for the teenagers. Once again, using my mom as a reference, "Watching you children walk across the stage was one of the most bitter sweet moments of my life. It was like realizing my babies are truly adults now, and while you were walking the stage I didn't see you simply walking across the stage. I saw you walking down the hall on the first day of kindergarten, I saw you walking out onto the wrestling mat for the first time in 6th grade to earn your first medal, I saw you dreadfully walking into high school, I saw the time you had your heart broke by your high school sweet hart, and I saw you scarily take your first step into adulthood."
I suppose that's what the schools want from their graduation. Classy memories not only for the children, but also for the parents as well. That's why antics like this should be made a big deal.
The thing about graduations is they want them to be as classy as possible. They want you to be able to look back 30 years from now and think "Wow. That was a great moment. I worked so hard for my diploma, and walking across that stage is one of the greatest moments of my life."
They try to make it as fun as possible when it comes to rehearsals, project graduation (not sure if they do that everywhere), and in return they simply request that adolescents coming into adulthood act like adults for 2 hours.
This is a moment for the parents as much as it is for the teenagers. Once again, using my mom as a reference, "Watching you children walk across the stage was one of the most bitter sweet moments of my life. It was like realizing my babies are truly adults now, and while you were walking the stage I didn't see you simply walking across the stage. I saw you walking down the hall on the first day of kindergarten, I saw you walking out onto the wrestling mat for the first time in 6th grade to earn your first medal, I saw you dreadfully walking into high school, I saw the time you had your heart broke by your high school sweet hart, and I saw you scarily take your first step into adulthood."
I suppose that's what the schools want from their graduation. Classy memories not only for the children, but also for the parents as well. That's why antics like this should be made a big deal.
Moon Knight
Original Prince of Darkness
I'd write the letter, and make sure it was along the lines of I sure as hell am sorry for using the word hell....I sure as hell didn't know hell would offend you. I am sorry as hell for for offending you.
I'm only on page 2.
shattered dreams
Hexagonal Hedonist
I think there are several things we can agree on with the fact that not knowing all the information makes this is tricky situation to judge being first and foremost. What I have a harder time accepting is that you are able to engage in wild conjecture and speculation to prove your point under the guise of "expertise" while no one else is allowed present even logical connections. You may be right, you might even be more likely to be right but you may just as easily be too heavily biased. I am not even sure what you are arguing exactly since you repeatedly say you don't think the school should have chosen this punishment. I guess you are mostly on the girl is more wrong than the school soapbox while I am thinking more of the opposite. We really can post a lot on relatively minor differences of opinion, can't we?
I am referencing two simple snippets. First, the situation was described as the girl showed up to get her diploma and was told then that she could not get it unless she did the apology letter. If that is true then I have hard time believing your conjecture isn't excessively optimistic on how the school handled it. Regardless of why, the problem lies in the apparent approach on the issue being presented as what amounts to a threat. Even if the request was probably small, the punishment mentioned was obviously disproportional to the crime.
Second, the girl has said she doesn't feel she did anything wrong. I know you have gone to great lengths to suggest various wordplays that may indicate that isn't the case but that is still based on your speculation. We don't even know if anyone was actually offended. I have a hard time believing there were rampant complaints about something so trivial, can say it at church and in G movies, but it is an abomination in front of this group for some reason? This whole thing reeks of bureaucracy and egos over common sense. Just because that is the way things works in a school system doesn't make it the correct way to handle a situation.
My personal opinion is that the school made this a big deal when they brought up the diploma. I think it is a fairly reasonable one. You keep acting like if she just does what they say this wouldn't have become an issue. However, it is equally true that if they never came up with this ridiculous threat it would not have become a big issue either. I know you want to play devil's advocate but there is a reason we have repeatedly seen these stupid diploma situations, that being the schools have no other threat of punishment they can offer. I find the way schools are using such threats to be reprehensible.
I think you have misinterpreted my stance on rules and enforcement. When I referred to mentioning the punishment beforehand I was referencing this specific situation. When I generally referred to consistency in enforcement I was specifically interested in comparable situations, not ones that were clearly different. While almost every situation is unique, is it not that often the case that punishments for similar offenses carry similar punishments? Precedent is a huge part of our adult legal system, why would this such a foreign concept in disciplining youths? It isn't like the adult system is incapable of being flexibile depending on the unique aspects of a case, just that it is then governed by some generally reasonable standards that are fairly clear. What I was basically getting at was that when the only punishment you can levy on someone clearly exceeds the bounds of the crime then it should be common sense that you should step back and reevaluate if this is really worth pursuing. The crux of our disagreement is that you feel the apology was the punishment while I feel that was the remedy offered to the punishment of not giving the degree.
I am referencing two simple snippets. First, the situation was described as the girl showed up to get her diploma and was told then that she could not get it unless she did the apology letter. If that is true then I have hard time believing your conjecture isn't excessively optimistic on how the school handled it. Regardless of why, the problem lies in the apparent approach on the issue being presented as what amounts to a threat. Even if the request was probably small, the punishment mentioned was obviously disproportional to the crime.
Second, the girl has said she doesn't feel she did anything wrong. I know you have gone to great lengths to suggest various wordplays that may indicate that isn't the case but that is still based on your speculation. We don't even know if anyone was actually offended. I have a hard time believing there were rampant complaints about something so trivial, can say it at church and in G movies, but it is an abomination in front of this group for some reason? This whole thing reeks of bureaucracy and egos over common sense. Just because that is the way things works in a school system doesn't make it the correct way to handle a situation.
My personal opinion is that the school made this a big deal when they brought up the diploma. I think it is a fairly reasonable one. You keep acting like if she just does what they say this wouldn't have become an issue. However, it is equally true that if they never came up with this ridiculous threat it would not have become a big issue either. I know you want to play devil's advocate but there is a reason we have repeatedly seen these stupid diploma situations, that being the schools have no other threat of punishment they can offer. I find the way schools are using such threats to be reprehensible.
I think you have misinterpreted my stance on rules and enforcement. When I referred to mentioning the punishment beforehand I was referencing this specific situation. When I generally referred to consistency in enforcement I was specifically interested in comparable situations, not ones that were clearly different. While almost every situation is unique, is it not that often the case that punishments for similar offenses carry similar punishments? Precedent is a huge part of our adult legal system, why would this such a foreign concept in disciplining youths? It isn't like the adult system is incapable of being flexibile depending on the unique aspects of a case, just that it is then governed by some generally reasonable standards that are fairly clear. What I was basically getting at was that when the only punishment you can levy on someone clearly exceeds the bounds of the crime then it should be common sense that you should step back and reevaluate if this is really worth pursuing. The crux of our disagreement is that you feel the apology was the punishment while I feel that was the remedy offered to the punishment of not giving the degree.
What logical connection are you making though? That the school is exerting its authority? Well, of course they are, anytime a school punishes for a violation they are exerting their authority. That the school shouldn't have waited so long before notifying her of her punishment? Well, maybe, but that has nothing to do with whether or not they should punish her. Off-hand, the only other argument I can think you've made is that they shouldn't have punished her at all. But that's not a "logical connection", that's a difference of opinion between you and the school, and your opinion is admittedly ignorant since you don't know the facts the school does.
Honest question, what exactly is the logical connection you've made?
I'm not being biased. I said in my first post in this thread that I think both sides are being silly. But you seem to only be attacking the school for their actions. Which is why I'm trying to help you understand the situation is likely more complex than a short news article would make it seem.
I still maintain we're not as bad as OneBigWill or GameRage/BA Bomb.
I can't say why it would have taken so long, but based on the amount of time, the only explanation that really fits would be something similar to my explanation. How else would you explain it reasonably?
Well, we're obviously just going to have to disagree on this, because I will never agree that apologizing is a disproportional response to a mistake.
They never do.
But c'mon, I can't be the only person that thinks this situation is fishy. This girl takes a quote from a book/movie that includes the word hell in it, gets it approved as "heck", says "hell" at the graduation and feels she did nothing wrong? Since I've been watching a lot of Futurama lately, allow me to say, "Does not compute".
If you sat down at a dinner table and actually used another person's fork, would you not apologize for that? If you accidentally grabbed a friend's cell phone instead of your own, would you not apologize for it? If someone introduces them self to you, and you accidentally call them by the wrong name, would you not apologize for it? Of course you would. Why? Because you made a small mistake, an insignificant wrong and you apologize. Why then is her slip of the tongue mistake not worthy of an apology?
This situation, and I'll say now this is complete conjecture, sounds like a FAR more likely case of where the girl actually wanted to say "hell" in the first place and the administration told her no. She did anyways. That seems to be the far more likely scenario. If it really was nothing more than a slip of the tongue, why is she so outraged at being asked for a simple apology?
Again, it's only a guess, but it's a guess which comes from years of experience dealing with students.
EDIT: Just found this:
Source: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20623372,00.html
So it wasn't even a slip of the tongue, it was a conscious decision. Definitely adds more credibility to my argument about her knowing it was wrong and saying it anyways, doesn't it?
Why would the school punish her if someone wasn't offended, whether it was because of the word or because you gave a speech she wasn't supposed to give?
Agreed. All she has to do is swallow her ego and apologize for saying something she was not expected or approved to.
That's not true. This same exact situation could have happened without national news media. The school didn't call the news media, the parent/student did.
But you also never hear all the other factors which go into the situation. You only hear one side of the story, the side which is coming from the party seeking attention. I imagine that in many cases, if the school wasn't bound by FERPA, you'd get a much different sense of what actually happened.
I'm still not following you then.
You're telling me the school should have told this girl before she gave her speech that if she changed one word then her punishment would be a letter of apology? Why would the school assume this girl would change an appropriate speech to an inappropriate one?
But what's comparable to using an inappropriate word during your valedictorian speech at graduation? How often do you think this has been an issue?
You still haven't answered why an apology is an inappropriate punishment for a mistake.
Not giving the degree is not the punishment itself. Just like I couldn't have received my grades from college last spring if I didn't pay my bill for a parking ticket (which wasn't even mine, it was my father's, but that's another story), she cannot get her diploma until she pays off her violation of inappropriate language.
My apologies if you've answered this 1052980623846 times, but I was just curious and hadn't ever seen anything said about it before.
You're back in college? What degree are you currently working on?My apologies if you've answered this 1052980623846 times, but I was just curious and hadn't ever seen anything said about it before.
It was just one class, and it wasn't even a course on campus. But it provided three hours, which helps me move along the salary scale. And it was just a secondary education course. Nothing difficult, basically paid $200 and wrote a paper.
^_^ Nothing like 1 class to bump the salary a little. What's the furthest along you've gotten in your degree?
I just imagine, based on your behavior/actions around here you would be a wonderful principal to say the least.
All you have to have is a higher degree in leadership & administration? No?
Well, you have to have 8 hours of college credit to move over, so I still have a few hours to go.
You have to have a Masters degree in Education, and I believe there's a test you have to pass to get your license. But I have ZERO desire to ever go into administration. From what I've seen family members have to deal with, I have no desire to do it. I may get an Administration degree, but I won't ever use it.
shattered dreams
Hexagonal Hedonist
I guess you win this round since my level of caring on the subject has been exhausted. Too bad I can't just ban you when I get to that point and claim victory. 
I guess you win this round since my level of caring on the subject has been exhausted. Too bad I can't just ban you when I get to that point and claim victory.
Hey, to be fair, I've only banned you once and I gave you fair warning on that.
Now quit being pleasant to me, I'm not sure how to react to that.
My mom says the same thing, but I'm not going to lie the 120k the principal at my local high school makes sure does make any type of stress look appealing.
I'd guess our principals make half of that.
But it's just not worth having to deal with what you have to deal with and know what you have to know. My mother is a Superintendent, and I've seen things she's had to deal with and I want no part of it. Just as an example, she's had to tell one of her teachers that her daughter was killed in a car accident and then, to support the teacher, rode out with her to the scene of the accident. She's had to deal with a family of pathological liars who, similar to this story, had a gripe with the school and took it to the media where the media spun the story in such a way it didn't come close to representing the truth. She has to regularly deal with pedophiles, telling them they are not allowed on campus unless their child is actively participating. She has had to ask teachers to resign for a variety of reasons, reasons I cannot and would not mention here, but I know of due to my job in the technology department.
That's a VERY small sample of the things she's dealt with over the years, and that's not including all the number of stupid parents you have to deal with as a principal, parents who just don't understand how their precious angel could have ever done anything wrong, like sucker punch another student. Even when you show them video of the incident, it's still someone else's fault and you are a bastard/bitch for daring to accuse their child of wrongdoing. Kind of like this story, really.
I have no desire to be a principal. I like money, but money has never been that important to me, and I'm happy with what I do.
shattered dreams
Hexagonal Hedonist
Maybe I will kill you with kindness for a while instead of our usual interaction.
[YOUTUBE]4sA1c1WErUk&gl[/YOUTUBE]
Tiger Chaos Theory
You ain't drawin' shit!
I hear this was a quote from Twilight in which case I'm ok with her not being given a diploma.
In a quirky, and frankly unamusing, twist, my school's mascot is the Rams. True story.
The Big Gunnzbowski
Damas y Caballeros...
I have to respectfully disagree with you, Sly. While yes, apologizing will get her that diploma, it's the principal of the matter. The school is bullying her because we all know that apology means dick to them. They're just being pricks and asserting their authority and it's stupid. If she apologizes, she's going against what she believes and I'll be damned if I'm going to let somebody push me into backtracking on my beliefs, no matter the circumstances.
[QUOTE="The Living Legend" Johnny Gunnz;4083677]I have to respectfully disagree with you, Sly. While yes, apologizing will get her that diploma, it's the principal of the matter. The school is bullying her because we all know that apology means dick to them. They're just being pricks and asserting their authority and it's stupid. If she apologizes, she's going against what she believes and I'll be damned if I'm going to let somebody push me into backtracking on my beliefs, no matter the circumstances.[/QUOTE]
While I've already written numerous posts in this thread on why I disagree with you, could you please tell me what "belief" she's standing up for? Do you think she truly holds the belief of being able to say hell in a graduation speech that dearly?
While I've already written numerous posts in this thread on why I disagree with you, could you please tell me what "belief" she's standing up for? Do you think she truly holds the belief of being able to say hell in a graduation speech that dearly?
Isn't the salary based on the amount of teachers under the principals?
I asked my mom what the principal at her school makes, and she said the rumors are damn near 200k; keep in mind he's been a principal for 30 years, and a teacher for 17. He's going into his 48th year with the county this year.
Yeah, all definitely things I'd rather not have to deal with. When it comes to children, especially someone else's children, any and all stressful situations are immediately about 30 times more stressful than before. I think it's for some people, and not for others; but I also think that's with teaching all together.
Nothing like getting paid 30,000$ a year for a seventy hour work week.
No. Salary is based upon base pay + years served. Our administrators share too many teachers for something like that.
Size of the school district makes a difference. We have roughly 900 students K-12. I'm guessing the school district you're speaking of is either much larger, or is in a place where cost of living is much higher.
After all my stipends for various jobs I do, I make somewhere between $35,000 and $40,000, I believe. I'm sure if you found the right newspaper, you could tell me how much I make.
George Steele's Barber
Advertise Here $9.95/month
[QUOTE="The Living Legend" Johnny Gunnz;4083677]I have to respectfully disagree with you, Sly. While yes, apologizing will get her that diploma, it's the principal of the matter. The school is bullying her because we all know that apology means dick to them. They're just being pricks and asserting their authority and it's stupid. If she apologizes, she's going against what she believes and I'll be damned if I'm going to let somebody push me into backtracking on my beliefs, no matter the circumstances.[/QUOTE]
Kill me the fuck now I have no effin' clue why the hell anyone would try to keep this inane conversation going.
<<Insert .gif of someone blowing their brains out of their head>>
Kill me the fuck now I have no effin' clue why the hell anyone would try to keep this inane conversation going.
<<Insert .gif of someone blowing their brains out of their head>>
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