<p>My son’s HS traditionally has an offsite official party the night of graduation. Parents do fundraising all yr to pay for it. Some years the funds add up to as much as $50K. My own take on it is that it’s a waste of money - less than half the kids attended last year and it is held on a night that many out-of-town guests are hoping to see the graduate. THis is a class of about 350 students. The alcohol-free party really just appeases the parents for 8 hours. We are having no luck with the ‘other side’. We are curious what other senior classes do. If there are other alternatives, we’d like to present them. One of our hopes is just to move it to a different night. Thank you.</p>
<p>My senior year (2001 - I’m old), it was required. Couldn’t get your diploma without either showing up or having parents excuse the student. Lasted til about 5:30 in the morning, and was a pretty good time.</p>
<p>The one at my school was really popular and really fun. I had a great time!</p>
<p>At my high school, our graduation was complete with drinks in the school quadrangle afterwards… so alcohol-free wasn’t exactly on the agenda.</p>
<p>Then, much of the graduating class moved on to another big party at a club to get super, super drunk and have a good time.</p>
<p>It was a fun night.</p>
<p>Our college town hosts an all-night party for all graduating seniors in the city, including private and parochial schools (which account for a very small portion of the total). It is well organized, lasts until 5:30 am, has very high attendance, they give away lucrative prizes donated by town businesses (one of my son’s friends won a TV too large to fit in his car trunk), and overall seems to be quite successful. Many parents help out (all I did was clean up the next morning). </p>
<p>Since I hosted an all-night party at my house after prom, I was perfectly fine with a graduation party that was held somewhere else. (Not that I don’t love my son’s friends.) I guess it depends on how it is done, but the one here works very well.</p>
<p>LOL.<br>
Our school’s grad night was a $300 per student affair. If you didn’t want to cough up the cash, you could try to raise it throughout the year by selling honey baked hams and candles. If you didn’t pay up, your kid could still attend- no one was turned away. I’m not sure how they underwrite the people who don’t pay.</p>
<p>The kids went to House of Blues for dinner, Cirque de Soleil, then on an all-night River Cruise with fake gambling for prizes. At the end of the night everyone went home with additional “favors”, depending on your sweepstakes number. The prizes included laptops, stereos, TVs, luggage, refrigerators, and cash. Upon their return (at around 6 AM), they are served breakfast in the cafeteria and the parents take them home (unless they are driving themselves, which is kind of dangerous at that point).</p>
<p>The kids love it. It has been a smashing success. It’s the last time most of them ever see each other- a really memorable sendoff.</p>
<p>I was a chaperone for the graduating class of my younger daughters inner city high school last year ( she is a senior * this * year)</p>
<p>It was a blast! and very popular, we must have had 2/3rds of the kids attend.
( I think nine chartered buses full)
I wasn’t involved w the planning, but a catering type company organized the whole thing.
First they went to a [Funplex</a> playland](<a href=“http://www.fun-center.com/]Funplex”>http://www.fun-center.com/)sort of place that had go karts-batting cages, trampolines, henna tattoo artists- air hockey, bumper boats, video games deluxe, putt putt golf, lazer tag, etc… ( and food)
The school community does quite a bit of fundraising- charges are minimal-for senior year</p>
<p>I think we would have been happy to have stayed there all night, but we then went to a bowling alley/dancing/pool hall, where there was more food and more music.
Well the kids might have thought it was more music but I was * very * happy to have brought my ipod so I didn’t have to listen to it.</p>
<p>It was about 3 am I think by this point & the kids were getting tired, there was “gambling” ( tables set up for different games- texas hold em etc), bowling alleys had “music videos” in case just bowling wasn’t interesting enough, the pool tables didn’t look bad and at about 4 they had a “breakfast” buffet- and then a hypnotist came to do a show.
Some parents came to pick up the kids at 6, but most of us rode back to the school & slept on the way.
I could have done with out the decible level at the 2nd place, but it was great fun to watch these recent high school grads, jump on the tramp and play on the bumper boats.</p>
<p>I know I won’t be allowed to chaperone this year, but I appreciated the chance to do so last year.</p>
<p>I went to a pretty bad inner city public school…so no party :(</p>
<p>Our schools has hosted an all-nighter the Friday night before the Sunday graduation, and has gone all out. They actually hold it at the school with the help of lots of parent chaperones and staff. If you’re attending, you have to be there before 9:30PM, and then may not leave until after 4:30AM (when, this year I learned, the sky was already brightening in the east!)</p>
<p>They’ve done it four years now, and every year have had the same hypnotist come, and he’s always the hit of the night. When D1 went off to freshman year of college, she called one night after freshman orientation activities and told us that the same hypnotist that had been at her all-nighter 3 months earlier, was also at Syracuse U for freshman orientation weekend. So he makes the rounds.</p>
<p>In addition to the hypnotist, they rent lots of inflatable games and activities: velcro wall, super slides, slingshot, etc.; they have a DJ set up in another gym; they have tons and tons and tons of food (you cannot walk out of there hungry); they show a movie in the auditorium; they have ping pong and pool tables set up; they have a couple of bigger raffle prizes during the event with some pretty nice prizes; they have a photo booth so friends can have their pictures done together. And of course they have lots of tables with board games set up. They usually get a bit better than 50% attendance, and only charge $15 I think. I’m sure the kids eat that much in food alone. I wish more kids would participate, but the kids who do go, have a good time, and it literally takes them an hour to go through all the donated raffle prizes at the end of the night (or beginning of the morning). The parents group does fundraising throughout the year to sponsor this event so the costs can be kept down.</p>