Illinois Students Lose Diplomas Over Cheers

[Kor37 9]

Illinois Students Lose Diplomas Over Cheers

By JAN DENNIS

AP

GALESBURG, Illinois (June 1) - Caisha Gayles graduated with honors last month, but she is still waiting for her diploma. The reason: the whoops of joy from the audience as she crossed the stage.

 

Five students were denied diplomas after family and friends cheered for them during their high school graduation. The school says it was just trying to conduct a dignified ceremony.

 

Gayles was one of five students denied diplomas from the lone public high school in Galesburg after enthusiastic friends or family members cheered for them during commencement.

 

About a month before the May 27 ceremony, Galesburg High students and their parents had to sign a contract promising to act in dignified way. Violators were warned they could be denied their diplomas and barred from the after-graduation party.

 

Many schools across the country ask spectators to hold applause and cheers until the end of graduation. But few of them enforce the policy with what some in Galesburg say are strong-arm tactics.

 

In Galesburg, the issue has taken on added controversy with accusations that the students were targeted because of their race: four are black and one is Hispanic. Parents say cheers also erupted for white students, and none of them was denied a diploma.

 

"It was like one of the worst days of my life," said Gayles, who had a 3.4 grade-point average and officially graduated, but does not have the keepsake diploma to hang on her wall. "You walk across the stage and then you can't get your diploma because of other people cheering for you. It was devastating, actually."

 

School officials in Galesburg, a working-class town of 34,000 that is still reeling from the 2004 shutdown of a 1,600-employee refrigerator factory, said the get-tough policy followed a 2005 commencement where hoots, hollers and even air horns drowned out much of the ceremony and nearly touched off fights in the audience when the unruly were asked to quiet down.

 

"Lots of parents complained that they could not hear their own child's name called," said Joel Estes, Galesburg's assistant superintendent. "And I think that led us to saying we have to do something about this to restore some dignity and honor to the ceremony so that everyone can appreciate it and enjoy it."

 

In Indianapolis, public school officials this year started kicking out parents and relatives who cheer. At one school, the superintendent interrupted last month's graduation to order police to remove a woman from the gymnasium.

 

"It's an important, solemn occasion. There's plenty of time for celebration before and after," said Clarke Campbell, president of the Indianapolis school board.

 

Principal Tom Chiles said administrators who monitored the more than 2,000-seat auditorium reported only disruptions they considered "significant," and all turned in the same five names.

 

"Race had absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever," Chiles said. "It is the amount of disruption at the time of the incident."

 

School officials said they will hear students and parents out if they appeal. Meanwhile, the school said the five students can still get their diplomas by completing eight hours of public service work, answering phones, sorting books or doing other chores for the district, situated about 150 miles southwest of Chicago.

 

Gayles' mother said she plans to fight the school board - in court if necessary - to get her daughter's diploma. The noise "was like three seconds. It was like, `Yay,' and that was it," Carolyn Gayles said.

 

American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Edward Yohnka said Galesburg's policy raises no red flags as long as it is enforced equitably. "It's probably well within the school's ability to control the decorum at an event like this," he said.

 

Another student who was denied her diploma, Nadia Trent, said she will probably let the school keep it if her appeals fail.

 

"It's not fair. Somebody could not like me and just decide to yell to get me in trouble. I can't control everyone, just the ones I gave tickets to," Trent said.

 

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of......

[Theunicornhunter 2]

What is the matter with people?

 

Apparently this girl's family signed a contract saying they'd behave and then they're using the excuse "it was only for a few seconds"

 

However, the other girl makes a point, if someone didn't like you they could create a ruckus out of spite.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

I remember when we had our junior college graduation the Vice President of Student Services said that anyone making a fool of themselves would not have their transcripts sent to our transfer schools.

 

Well, MY transcripts had already been sent! I wore jungle boots, a college sweatshirt, and shorts under my gown and I snuck in some beer.

[Vulcan_lover 1]

I remember when we had our junior college graduation the Vice President of Student Services said that anyone making a fool of themselves would not have their transcripts sent to our transfer schools.

 

Well, MY transcripts had already been sent! I wore jungle boots, a college sweatshirt, and shorts under my gown and I snuck in some beer.

 

 

Van Roy, I did worse for my high school graduation.....me and some of my friends decided it would be a good idea to wear nothing under our robes....it was fine for me, but the guys got in some trouble since they didn't have any pants hanging out below their robe, but as they pointed out, it never says in the rules that you have to wear clothes under them. But all in all, people make to big of a deal about graduation.

[Theunicornhunter 2]

But all in all, people make to big of a deal about graduation.

 

If it's not a big deal why not just stay home?

 

BTW I never knew that it mattered what you wore underneath. I think we all wore shorts - it was June in Florida and outdoors but I don't really remember.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

Van Roy, I did worse for my high school graduation.....me and some of my friends decided it would be a good idea to wear nothing under our robes....it was fine for me,

Is anyone else reading this really horny right now?

 

We could never do that at my real college (as real as San Jose State anyway). The faculty sat with the students in the football stadium. I snuck in beer there too, gave some to the faculty (My parents were watching from the stands, they just shook their heads.) but someone tossed in some of those balloon ball things and we spiked volleys. The faculty got in on the game too. (I spiked one of my tougher professors right in the face and rumor has it he hasn't given a student a C since.) Our department - faculty and students - paid so little attention to the commencement speech that the administration had to leave the stands and come get the balls from us. They tried to do it discretely but of course that didn't work.

 

Anyway, this is not something we could have done naked under our robes.

[Gummy 0]

 

 

 

Van Roy, I did worse for my high school graduation.....me and some of my friends decided it would be a good idea to wear nothing under our robes....it was fine for me.

I've always said that if I am ever elected as a Judge, I would be naked under my robe.

j/k.

[Kor37 9]

UPDATE:

 

School Relents, Gives Out Diplomas

Students Were Initially Denied Them Because of Cheers

By JAN DENNIS

AP

GALESBURG, Ill. (June 7) - Five students will get the diplomas they were denied when cheers erupted for them at a high school graduation, and school officials said Wednesday they would review a get-tough decorum policy.

 

Galesburg High School officials had said they would not hand over the keepsake diplomas unless they received apologies. But the stalemate over the diplomas and the media attention it attracted have taken valuable time and energy, they said.

 

"It is time for the good of the community, the school district, the families and the students involved to move on," Superintendent Gene Denisar said in a written statement.

 

The diplomas were withheld because the school said cheering violated a school policy aimed at restoring graduation decorum. The students still were considered graduates on paper, but they didn't have a diploma.

 

Graduate Nadia Trent, who picked up her diploma from the school secretary Wednesday afternoon, said she's "just happy it's over."

 

"If they would have apologized, it would have been better," said Trent.

 

Denisar cited talks with the Illinois State Board of Education, which has said it cannot support the district's decorum policy because it makes students responsible for behavior they cannot control, in explaining the decision.

 

The central Illinois school district about 150 miles southwest of Chicago will continue efforts to make commencement a "respectful and dignified occasion that all graduates and their families can enjoy," school board President Michael Panther said in statement. Officials did not say how they planned to review the no-cheer policy.

 

Peoria attorney Jeffrey Green, who took the students' case at no cost, sent a letter late Tuesday threatening to sue the district if officials did not apologize and deliver the diplomas by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

 

"They met with the families two or three times and had a chance to get this thing right," Green said. "I've been involved less than 24 hours, and now they have their diplomas, so you draw your own conclusions."

 

Parent Pam Kelley said she was disappointed that school officials did not apologize and that her daughter, Amanda, was handed the diploma by a high school secretary, not principal Tom Chiles.

 

"At least he could have come out and shook her hand and said congratulations," Kelley said.

 

 

 

I can't believe how infantile these school officials are! They are supposed to be role models? What a joke!

[trekz 7]

These school officials finally relented, after making themselves look very foolish. This is an historic community (only about 60 miles from where I grew up) that is famous as the birthplace of Carl Sandburg and as the last remaining site of a Lincoln-Douglas debate. I hope this incident does not go down in history.