A little more detail on the “Promotiongate” story in the Signal this morning.http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/26394/
When I arrived home last night I did two things. I polled the remaining members of my family (Daughter home for spring break and son who is a freshman at Valencia High School) to find out their opinions of 6th and 8th grade “promotion” ceremonies. The unscientific poll proved 100%: Both agreed that at best the promotion ceremonies were boring and at worst they exposed the students, the schools and the community to ridicule.
For the second activity, I joined TWO very new and robust Facebook fan pages seeking to overturn the District decision. One relates to the district as a whole (nearly 1,000 members as of last night) and one related specifically to Rio Norte Junior High (over 600 members). I quickly posted my thoughts praising the elimination of this “Hillbilly” tradition.
I was not alone in my position. The “anti” promotion camp seemed to fall within two broad groups. High school students and college students who recently endured a promotion ceremony and realized its ludicrousness and parents who thought it strange that so much furor was whipped up over the cancellation of a two hour ceremony when 45 students might be in classrooms for the next several years when the really tough cuts occur.
For the “pro” camp we had parents, and a surprising number of aunts (?) talking about fairness and celebrating achievement. From these comments one can see how studies prove that the “millenial” generation (People born between 1980 and 2000) are the most coddled and celebrated in the history of the world, particularly in suburbia. We also had students whose disjointed sentences and “text” abbreviations made you wonder about the wisdom of their impending “promotion.” Also, I was not sure how to react to the fact that little has changed in 36 years: The worst insult a 13 year old can hurl at someone is to accuse them of being homosexual.
The “pro” camp certainly does not like hearing from people who disagree, and they promise to flood the Board Meeting TONIGHT to get them to overturn the decision. One parent has even helped in the organization of a sit-in at Rio Norte on Friday (March 26) and invited Channel 5 to record the proceedings, and we all know what happens when TV cameras are around. One student promised on a Facebook post to do something that would cause him to be tasered by law enforcement.
I support the decision for two reasons: One, 8th grade promotion ceremonies are silly. Two, when an entity faces severe cost cutting they MUST get rid of frivolous expenditures first to have the moral standing to make the really serious cuts. Will the Boad stiffen its spine and reject the wishes of the indulgent parents? Will more people show up to protest the elimination of a two hour ceremony than the permanent closing of a neighborhood elementary school? Stay tuned for tomorrow.
Loading ...
Some parents may help privately fund a recognition ceremony. This is the way to go.
Petz, that is an horrific idea for so many reasons, not least of which is that it would spur an “promotion” race between various constituencies to have the most elaborate ceremony. I sincerely hope the Board will stiffen further and NOT allow school facilities to be used for a private ceremony. The logistics and cost of another venue would probably stymy any private effort.
Well – hope no one shows up for the board meeting tonight since the meeting is actually next Wednesday.
Oops!!! Some of the Facebook folk thought it was occurring TONIGHT! This makes a tremendous amount of sense because the Board would want a little distance between the decision and the next meeting to let things cool off. We will see if the Rio Norte thing amounts to much this Friday.
Really? People are that upset about not being able to throw their kid a party as a send off to…drumroll…9th grade? This should have happened a long time ago. 6th grade promotions should be shuttered also-last year when I went to my nephew’s 6th grade “graduation” parents had there kids driven up in Hummer limos-girls wearing dresses and shoes fit for a senior prom. Please SCV-get over yourselves and the spoiled brats you raise up here.
Here’s a thought: Have the district bank the money we’d save throwing these ceremonies and set up a fund where kids who are going to actually graduate can receive vouchers towards laptops for college-oops-I forget where we live…most of these kids had Macbooks handed to them when they were three! Oh well…keep it simple I guess…Promote and celebrate your kids when they actually achieve something…like finishing high school and perhaps going to college. Wishful thinking for a place who would rather spend money promoting itself as “Awesometown”…
You need to join the Facebook page to see the indulgence. I would have thought the bursting of the liquidity bubble would have damped that down a bit.
Question, how many of you had an eighth grade promotion ceremony when you were a kid? I did and I lived back east at the time. It was a big deal to go from the K-8 school that I had been at for all those years to high school. But budget cuts are needed and I see no problem with this cut with the economic conditions the way they are.
I had one and my Nebraska bride has been ridiculing me for it throughout our courtship and marriage.
When I left 6th grade, we got to wear nicer clothes to school and say goodbye to all our teachers. Not a thing happend between middle school and high school. One has to wonder how kids feel when they belong to families who can’t afford the clothes and limos. It is as stupid as it comes.
CC:
I tend to think that the people who brought out the Hummer limos, etc. were living off home equity to fund a lot of their consumption. People who have money don’t generally spend it that foolishly; that is why they have money!
The problem isn’t if an 8th grade promotion ceremony is frivolous or not; it’s how the school board handled this situation. They say they’ve been “thinking about discontinuing these ceremonies for the past few years”. Really? Why did they wait until 8 weeks before to cancel it? Do you know how many parents have bought dresses or suits and plane tickets for out of town grandparents? The district obviously has no concern for OUR financial situations. There is NO transparency with anything this school board does. You should all be worrying where the Castaic kids will go to high school.
BBock:
Dresses and suits can be returned and grandparents can come visit just for fun. If someone had a tailored dress made for an eighth grade promotion, Oh Jesus!
the schedule for the board meetings is on the district website — they are usually the first and third Wednesday of each month. When there are school breaks, then sometimes only one meeting for the month. The meeting was always scheduled for next week. Next week’s meeting will also be the monthly update on Castaic high and a decision about which school they will go to in the meantime.
I posted this in Jeff’s post about promotion, but here goes.
I met two eighth graders from Rancho Pico last night and asked them what they thought. They said they were just bummed that they had to spend more time in class at the end of the year.
In my experience, junior high means nothing (I hardly remember any of it and it was only six years ago) and once you’re in college, you realize that high school didn’t really matter either, as long as you’re where you want to be when you get out.
Now that I think about it junior high was actually nightmarish for about 95% of the participants for a lot of reasons so one probably tries to forget it as soon as possible.
Yeah, and some parents are acting like having the ceremony somehow boosts morale and keeps kids in school.
I won Rancho Pico’s “Mustang Award” when I was in the first graduating class there, and I went on to be really lazy when it came to academia in high school. I guess I was as lazy as a student enrolled in many AP classes could be.
My friend Matthew, who now goes to West Point, phrased it best on the wall of the bigger group on Facebook: “All you parents are doing is teaching your children that mediocrity is something to strive for. You’re not helping students, you’re crippling them.”
Ack, junior high graduation. What a nightmare inducing event. I still remember poor Cindy D. trying to walk across the stage of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in heels that would make a stripper proud. The audience couldn’t help but laugh, even though they tried not to. I was petrified to walk across that stage. Luckily I did better than poor Cindy D. Take it from someone who used to be in junior high, the kids probably want the graduation ceremony a lot less than the parents do.