If we skip graduation, will we regret it?

TrinSF
Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:58:27 +0000

Alright, so here’s a followup. (And by the way, yes, they actually have someone at the graduation collecting money. They are giving the students their diplomas after the ceremony; students have to check in at a table and parent volunteers are going to check a list to verify that the student has no holds, and will then release the actual diploma.)

So, the deal is, the graduation is taking about 8 hours of the day tomorrow. We have to attend a mandatory lunch, then a rehearsal, then the students have other gatherings, then lining up, and two hours of ceremony, followed by a lengthy reception. They’re graduating 80 students, I think. They have this whole thing where the parents are escorting the student up to get their (stand in) diploma, and a slide show segment for each students, and some sort of speech or something by a teacher about that student, etc. My partner and I both had to take the whole day off from work for it.

Anyway, here’s what happened. I sent email saying that we were sorry, our family had decided they were not attending, in part because of the financial matter, and in part because my son wants to spend the time with his classmates. And when he went into school on Thursday, there was much gnashing and wailing and serious guilting that went on. The school called me repeatedly, and said that they never got my repeated messages about financial issues, and this was the first they’d heard of it. They have reversed position about the AP test fees. And when I said, “Well, my son still really wants to attend this other thing”, the administrators and stuff said that it was really unfair of my son, that the teachers had tried so hard to make him welcome and that it was selfish and thoughtless and disrepectful of him not to attend, and intimated that I was being a bad parent by not making him do it.

And that pretty much makes it clear that the graduation isn’t for him, it’s for all the people with these expectations who want to be appeased or whatever. So, anyway, I called my son and said, “Well, they’re saying this and that, and I am not pressuring you, but I do think it’s your decision to attend or not”.

And the bottom line is, they guilted us into attending. sigh But we have all agreed that we’re leaving as soon as possible, and I’ve arranged to have him driven up to join the other gathering, already in progress.

I don’t think it’s an issue of us being ripped off. I think that the process for AP exams is very new for the school, – last year was the first year anyone took any – and that they’re still working out the financial process for that. But there’s a lot of this kind of stuff when you’re dealing with small schools, and I’ve come to understand that it’s just part of the whole thing. Like working at a startup vs. working at a big established company.