Our large public HS has an honors award night where the students are recognized by summa, magma and cum laude.
The students are asked to select a favorite teacher and write a short essay about how they were inspired by the teacher. At the awards ceremony the students are brought up one at a time with their selected teacher and a statement written by the teacher to the student is read. Sometimes the college is mentioned, but often it is not. The student is also has a studio type portrait taken with the teacher and it is presented to the student with the teacher’s statement and to the teacher with the student’s short essay. We (parents) thought it was a nice event and our D was trilled with the photo with the teacher and the nice comment he made.
The Band Awards night is different. Each senior writes their own brag sheet and future plans. They run the entire spectrum from “I managed not to drop out” and “I passed Calc, I think” to “I got into an Ivy based on merit alone.” The Band Awards night is a lot of fun with the Jazz band playing and the kids dancing in the aisles. Lots of awards and every student gets to walk the stage at least once and most a couple of times. At the end of the night they recognize the seniors with gag awards (my D won “most likely to get carded at 30” and “Best Memes”). The Band director then reads what each student submitted so they are each singled out for their individual achievements.
Athletes have their own awards night, no idea what happens there but the only athlete’s accomplishments I have ever heard mentioned are state championship awards and scholarships. Our school does well with athletic scholarships.
Our high school’s ceremony seems to suffer from the same issues as some of yours. It’s not as though the awards mean nothing, but the selection process seems rather capricious. For example, the valedictorian of D1’s class received not one single academic award, e.g.-none of the “Best in X Subject” awards. By definition, didn’t he have to be better than everyone else in at least ONE subject? It was very awkward because one could only conclude the teachers didn’t like him at all. Indeed, popularity and politics always seem to play a role in the selection, since there were some clear cases where my kids knew that a classmate had gotten B’s in English over the years and yet still earned the “Best in English” award over kids with straight A’s in English for 4 years. So what do grades mean then? If you want to give a “most improved” award or “most engaged student” award, then do that. But “the best” should actually be the best based on some objective facts like GPA or test results.
On that note, I really detest when an award winner is introduced not with a short bio of his accomplishments but rather with an account of his relationship with the teacher. “Bob and I are good buddies and frequently talk about football before class,” or “Susan sits in the first row and always laughs at my jokes.” That may not have actually had any bearing on the award decision, but it does make one wonder. Recently, D2’s world language teacher commented to me that he was pushing for one of his AP students to get that particular foreign language award, but the other teacher wanted to give it to a student who hadn’t even gone on to the AP level. It seems a bit unfair to give someone an award for being the best if he didn’t even bother to take the AP class while others did. So again, the teachers seem to pick who they like best who also happens to be a decent student.
Our school too has some inconsistencies just like kiddie’s. For example, they give a bizillion awards for every single branch of art and business, but just one for the major subjects like math and English. If the same pattern were followed, then there’d be one for calculus and one for statistics and so on, as well as one for literature and one for composition etc. But there aren’t. Like at kiddie’s school, our math dept. also gives an award for an 800 on the SAT (which my kids didn’t have), but the English department doesn’t recognize the 800’s in CR (which both of mine had lol). Another problem is the “out of sight, out of mind” issue. There are kids who are advanced in a particular subject and therefore finished the course sequence before senior year. So if John took AP Physics as a sophomore and was an exceptional student, he would nevertheless be unlikely to get the physics award over a student taking it senior year who did well. That happened to my S and several friends in his foreign language. He and several others excelled in the subject and were skipped a year when moving from middle school to the high school, so they took the AP in junior year. None of them got the award for excellence in the language though. A student who was taking the AP senior year got it.
Our school awards night gave awards the kids earned at the SCHOOL…not ones that they would be gettonng from their colleges. And I agree with that.
At our school, only the kids who are receiving awards are invited…thank goodness. There are some student types of awards that are given out during the day at an assembly (things like recognition to student council, class and club officers). Sports awards are done on a special sports awards night. Then there is an evening event that does other awards.
Really…it’s an awfully boring evening…and I wish they would just give the kids their awards during the day.
Our senior awards night is next week. I don’t really know what to expect. The kids were asked to list awards (and provide some sort of printout proving each) from the past year via a Google Form. Optionally they could list the college they will attend.
I asked, and the school said the only awards they “know about” for purposes of this event are NMF and Seal of Biliteracy. I’m hoping the athletic stuff is not part of this event. They seem to have a lot of their own award events and signing days.
I think there are also departmental awards. I also expect that the kids who truly are the top in certain subjects will be ignored because they haven’t taken courses at the school recently. While my kid’s last HS math class was in 10th grade, he has a friend who has been taking college math classes since the summer before 9th grade.
Our school doesn’t do book awards, RPI medal, or any other junior awards. We don’t have a wall of acceptances, a day when students wear their college t-shirt, or a list of colleges being attended in the graduation program or on a website. That is all very hush-hush at our school. (Half+ of the kids are headed to community college or the job market.)
Thanks to everyone who has provided a description of their awards night. It seems like inconsistency and questionable criteria are common.
Like many here, I don’t understand why so many schools make a bigger deal about athletics than academics. Isn’t the whole purpose of schools to educate the students?
@TheGFG - We have a similar story here. D was accelerated through a subject and went one semester in Level 1, was moved to level 2. Did level 3 and skipped level 4. Teachers comment all the time about how gifted she is in that subject, how unusual her talent is, and yet she’s never received recognition for it. They said the first year they couldn’t make her student of the year in either level because she didn’t do a whole year at that level. The major recognition for the subject comes at level 4 - and she skipped it entirely so wasn’t even eligible. It’s like they can’t figure out what to do in that situation.
Awards engender more parental resentment and anger than they are worth. No one ever thinks that their kid was praised enough. It’s high school. In four years time you will wonder why you ever fussed over this silliness.
Perhaps people care too much, but as some have already pointed out, athletes tend to be recognized more–more publicly and more frequently. An athlete may get a write-up in the newspaper, a mention in the morning announcements, a word of praise from the coach in front of the team, or a medal or trophy–sometimes all of the above for the same accomplishment. Musicians also can earn first chair in their local ensemble, regional and state recognition or admission to a higher level performance group, ranking in a piano or string competition, outstanding soloist at a jazz competition, etc. But a good and dedicated student can work for 7 years on, say, a foreign language, and never receive a single pat on the back beyond some silent numbers on a test paper. Not that s/he studies hard to get an award, but when awards are mishandled it can hurt. At our school, there are only academic awards for seniors. So other than NMF recognition, the senior awards assembly is their only opportunity to be acknowledged for all 4 years or more of diligent study. In addition, it’s tough when your high school has over 700 seniors and only one or two awards for each subject area.
When my kids are getting awards I really enjoy them -and when they aren’t -I don’t LOL
Seriously though I don’t know if there is a good way to do them. I know I don’t enjoy sitting for two hours watching kids I don’t know getting awards - no matter how well deserved they are.
A friend just posted on FB a video of her daughter’s ‘Signing Ceremony’. I knew she wasn’t an athlete, so I couldn’t figure out what it was about. At first I thought it was a graduation ceremony but it wasn’t. The principal explained that athletes had signing ceremonies and a big deal was made of them heading off to college, so this school decided to do it for their honor grads (top 20? top 10%?) I think it may have been an alternative high school and these kids really worked hard for their grades. It really was very nice. Each student read a list of the schools he/she’d been accepted to and where he/she was going. Then someone from the college came up and gave the student a goody bag with college swag in it, welcoming them to the school. No other HS awards were discussed. Just like athletic signings, it was all about the college and there was quite a variety from community college to Ohio State but no elite colleges. Really, the purpose was just to praise the student and it was very nice.
I agree that athletics should be kept separate except if it is an athletic award with a merit component or an award given by the school. The award to the best girl athlete (which required an application and essay) is no different than the best ceramic vase or the Model UN champ. And at our school that’s what happened. The athletic department organized the signing ceremony, each athlete (about 30) was limited to 3 minutes to thank the coach, mom and dad, God, and the US Military (you’d be surprised by how many did) and most didn’t need the 3 minutes. Very organized, then we had cake. Each sport had its own banquet for other awards. They did it immediately after school, many of their classmates came because, as I said, there was cake. Having gone to both the signing ceremony and the senior awards ceremony in the same location, the athletic one was 100x better and an hour and a half shorter. And there was cake.
I also think it is fine for schools to only recognize school (hs) granted awards if that’s what they want to do. However, then I don’t think they should talk about the DAR award, or the local photography store picture contest or the big Elks and American Legion awards or any college scholarships. In school awards only or everything. Or nothing.
Reporting back on D17’s awards night last night. This was academics only. The highlights (lowlights?) of a large public competitive high school:
My butt is KILLING me from sitting on a bleacher for three hours. H's back is out.
We counted 272 kids (18 rows x 16 kids per row). Senior class is about 700.
Beta Club is evidently the go-to for kids who want to show that they have some sort of honor. About 50% of the kids only were announced for a Beta Club cord. We were really grumpy after the third hour about that...
External scholarships took up a lot of time and it didn't seem balanced. Like some kid had this "um" and "like" filled soliloquy for 15 minutes about his 500 $ scholarship, and the kid (we don't know him) who got the Stamps was only mentioned in passing as he walked to get his honors cords. Like "Joe Blow: National Honor Society, Beta Club (of course), Stamps Scholarship, Teacher's Pet Ceramics I". I was like, well, jeez, one of those things is NOT like the other, lol.
D got one honor cord that was broken, and they forgot to give her her other one so she walked to receive her awards holding the tassel which had separated from the cord. I'm SUPER salty about that. The professional photographer was like, do you want to order pictures? and I was like, not until they can get the cords right. You have ONE job, Steve Harvey.
Luckily, D does not give a rat’s patootie about cords. I do care, to the point where I had ordered another cord on my own months before just in case the school screwed up. The other cord was for the national english honor society, which I cared about, but not to the extend of the GHP cord. That one represented a lot of work and years of effort by the entire family, and I wasn’t leaving it up to the school. So glad I didn’t.
The guy who has to read off all the names and awards for 3 hours is not paid enough. That was arduous just listening to it.
Best part of the night was the recognition of the kid who got into West Point and the kid who got a full ride++ to Emory. That was pretty cool, and not easy to do.
Our HS has a scholarship night for the local scholarship foundation and a separate athletic awards night. As far as I know, there is no ceremony for best in math, science, etc. At the scholarship night, most of the awards are about $500 and maybe 40-60 kids get one after having gone through an application and interview process. It’s not too painful - our super shy kid was OK with it. As the kids come up for their scholarship they just state their name, where they’re going to college, and their intended major. It’s not really about the money - even the very wealthy families are happy for their kid’s recognition. It’s a pretty simple evening, although it can be a little intimidating even for adults hearing all the amazing elite colleges so many of the kids are going to. Mostly the only people there are the families of the students getting awards.
Our local HS awards are so similar to those described in the original post I wonder if it is the same school. D received one small award freshman year and a subject award Senior year. Her name was announced at graduation but otherwise nothing for top ten ( actually top 5 /400). But hey she got a certificate for freshman cheerleading
^^Professional-ish. They’d had issues with parents running down to the floor to photograph their snowflake gladhanding whoever was handing out the prizes, so they have one guy taking pictures and handing out a card to access his website to buy the pictures. They have the same setup for prom.
Our HS only gives awards to seniors. Athletic teams, but not necessarily individual athletes, get recognition in the local paper and on the area paper website, but so do things like Model UN, honor roll,theater, State band, and perfect SAT and ACT awards. Since there are games every week, the teams may get more write ups, but the local paper will pretty much publish anything. Lots of college honor rolls too, but supplied by either the college or the parents.
Each athletic team (and marching band) has their own “awards banquet” or awards night which primarily focuses on the varsity team, especially the seniors. The kid who was primarily a bench sitter is not going to get any real recognition, besides being on the team.
It is good for kids to get recognized, but someone will always be left out or just misses the cutoff. Not sure there is anything that can be done about this. Our HS does not do Val and Sal (since the differential was going out too many decimal places), but recognizes every kid that had a full 4.0 all through high school (which of course leaves out the kid that got one A- as a freshman).
It seems to me that a lot of the problems people mention stem from a lack of centralized planning for these events. Different departments do different things, and there’s no consistency. That could probably be fixed.
One element I didn’t like at my kids’ school was that you got invited to the ceremony if your kid was winning any award, but you weren’t told what it was. This means that some people sat through hours of ceremony only to see their kid go on stage with fifty other kids to receive an award for being on the honor roll or something like that.
At my older Ds(4 years ago) honors night someone won a full ride prestigious scholarship and they had a member of the alumni association come at present it. He went on for about 10 minutes. It was a great scholarship but there was no reason for it to have so much time devoted to it. It just seemed lopsided
Other kids had scholarships -but it seemed this was solely because they had someone willing to come present it -that this kid got so much attention.