<p>I think Lafalum is spot on. The cutbacks in schools are huge, and between the limited budget and time, even though the <em>right</em> thing for them to do is reprint the pamphlets, and it probably doesn’t cost much in the scheme of things, its not practical. The stickers are a good idea- and hopefully they’ll make the time, budget, and personnel to do that.</p>
<p>Maybe you can wear a big sign on the front of your robe with your first name, and have your sister do the same with hers. You have every right to be hurt, angry, incensed, etc, but laughter is often the best medicine. Please keep up posted!</p>
<p>Wow! I am so sorry!!! I’m also sorry your parents can’t help - believe me, I’d be camped out in the principal’s office until something positive happened.</p>
<p>Since you say your parents don’t speak English, do you and your sister have a different national origin than most of the student body? I hate to put paranoid thoughts into your mind, but is it a case of racial/ethnic sterotyping/prejudice, as in “I just can’t keep all of those [insert ethnic group] straight.” If you went to the press about this, it could be deeply embarrassing to the school. Just sayin’. (Leverage?)</p>
<p>Maybe your sister could get up and tell everyone that she is NOT the valedictorian, and then introduce you. At the very least the principal should apologize for the mistake and tell everyone who the real valedictorian is.</p>
<p>You have my sympathy–I’m a twin who went through HS known as “Susie’s sister, what’s-her-name.” I also had an “ethnic” and hard to pronounce maiden name, which was often spelled wrong.</p>
<p>There’s no excuse. I’d like to see the person responsible hand correct the programs. You know that won’t happen, but it amuses me to think about it
If your name is foreign (especially if it is long) and your sister’s name is very similar to yours, that could explain the problem. That is an explanation, though, not an excuse.</p>
<p>D2’s high school graduation program ‘inadvertently’ included many names from the graduating class the year before them in the scholarships/honors section. Someone evidently used the program from the previous year, and forgot to delete some of the names that were now alumni. They couldn’t catch it in time to correct it for graduation (honestly, I don’t know that they even knew before graduation, until some parents pointed it out to some administrators at the ceremony), but they did reprint enough of them so that each graduate got one corrected copy, and sent them in the mail afterwards.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the supportive comments and awesome suggestions! I thought up everything I wanted to say, was going to mention the stickers, etc, etc to the activities director today.
But when I walked into school this morning, the principal came up to me, apologized, and said that they’ve decided to print 800 correct copies. Yay! I found out later that my oldest sister (adult age) emailed the principal of my high school this morning without me knowing. Then they talked over the phone about the situation, he owned up to his mistake, and agreed to print 800 copies. Yesterday I was told that the school wouldn’t be able to reprint any so I’m so happy things worked out! So there are still going to be quite a few programs with the incorrect name, but I’m just glad they are taking action to fix the problem.
As a side note - it’s frustrating that things are taken more seriously when an adult enters the situation. At my school especially, nothing is accomplished unless your parent comes into the office and complains or something. I guess having the adult say something means more than having the actual student say something. </p>
<p>Some posters were curious about our names. They aren’t foreign-sounding, and they aren’t similar - Lilly, Tina. The principal told my oldest sister that he was just confused. </p>
<p>Thank you again everyone for the very helpful comments. The speech ideas were awesome and I was planning on using them! But I guess I won’t have to anymore. </p>
<p>I’m so thankful for the parents forum - really, you are all so amazing and helpful.</p>
Our graduates are handed envelopes, so no one would have known here. And my son (not the Valedictorian; what difference does that make, anyway?) did not get his diploma at graduation, either, because they had misspelled his name (someone I knew in the high school office let me know ahead of time). No big deal – it came in the mail a few weeks later. </p>
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Doubtful.</p>
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Me, too. Unfortunately, probably everyone will blame someone else, and no one will take responsibility. It’s especially embarrassing, since they knew they made a mistake at the awards ceremony! </p>
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And that is perhaps going to be even more confusing. Let’s see…out of 5000 programs, 4200 are going to list your sister as valedictorian and only 800 will list you? ** Only 16% of the programs will be correct.** Why not reprint them all, or put stickers on them all? This still isn’t satisfactory, in my mind. If there was only a certain amount of money he could use for the reprinting, he should have dipped into his own money to make up the difference. Ask him if he would like it if he only received 16% of his paycheck? </p>
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Paying out of his pocket would have been a good consequence for his confusion. Wasn’t he also at the awards ceremony when they got it wrong? </p>
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So did some scholarship and honors winners not get their names in there, because previous graduates were listed instead? Another stupid error.</p>
<p>I agree with the post above, that having two sets of programs is going to be more confusing, and now you feel that you can’t use some of the ideas here to your advantage in the Val speech. They have the opportunity to fix ALL of the brochures. That is what they should do.</p>
<p>At a senior year spring sports awards dinner, D received a trophy. On it was inscribed “Blah, Blah, Blah, Good Luck at School B!” Upon presenting the trophy, the coach read the inscription to the group.</p>
<p>One problem - she was going to School A! School A and School B are big competitors, in all ways. The coach was/is a doofus. Everyone in the audience knew she was going to School A and everyone in the audience knew the coach had screwed it up, as usual. The other coaches were mortified. The parents and students in attendance (D included) roared with laughter. Coach kept the trophy following the dinner to get the inscription revised. It took about 1 year, as for months and months he had done nothing to get it corrected. Finally, one of the assistants saw to it that it was done correctly.</p>
<p>Moral of the story - things happen. It hurts now, but in the future it will make a great story that both OP and her sister will tell often, most likely to peals of laughter.</p>
<p>Wow, now I understand why Ds school does what it does. Including form that parent signs agreeing to name and any other info and telling kids to stop by and see proofs.</p>
<p>That is a good idea by your high school kayf.
OP: I am very happy the principal is taking on the responsibility of correcting the programs. 800 will cover all the students, I would guess. Make sure to keep a corrected copy for your scrapbook, and the incorrect one too, for a laugh when you are older.
CTTC: As for my kid not getting his diploma, the principal forgot to call the names of the Val and Sal to give them the empty booklet that holds the diplomas. So in essence, they did not get to “walk” at graduation. They spoke, but the way our school handles graduation pictures is they have a pro take the photo of each student receiving the diploma booklet and then backstage immediately after. These photos are sold to the parents. I had to sit very far away from the stage so I was counting on these photos. But since my son was not called to receive his diploma, no pictures were taken of him and his mom is left with photos of him as a pin-sized dot at the podium. But, I will say again, that is nothing compared to what was done to the OP. At least I have a program that lists my son as Val. And thankfully, the local paper has a photo of him at the podium, and I will purchase a reprint.</p>
<p>Humor tends always to be the best medicine. There’s a story about Milton Eisenhower (Dwight’s brother), who was president of Johns Hopkins University, a school whose name that is constantly mispronounced. He was giving a speech in a western Pennsylvania city. He was introduced, as often happened, as the president of “John Hopkins University.” He got up to the podium, smiled, and said, “Thank you. It’s so nice to be here in beautiful Pittburgh.” He made his point. And if he had thrown a fit, who would still be telling the story?</p>
<p>My name is one that can be spelled one of two ways (male & female variants). At my workplace, if you forget your ID badge, the guards look you up and print a temporary one. Almost every time, they look at my name on the computer, examine my license to make sure I’m me, and still spell it wrong!</p>
<p>OP, I’m sorry this has happened to you, and am glad that they are reprinting the 800 programs. Perhaps your sister can also ask that whoever introduces you makes the correction orally during the ceremony as well so the guests will not be confused.</p>
<p>And when you’re older, talking to your children about your youth, think of what a great story this will be!</p>
<p>Congratulations on your achievement; no misprint of your name can take that away from you.</p>
<p>When my DD was val, the principal mispronounced her name at the commencement ceremony in spite of being coached many times about how to pronounce it, and the registrar sent her photo to the newspaper too late for it to be included in the big spread in the newspaper that showed all the vals for local school districts. Her name wasn’t listed on the program as val (probably because they don’t even know who the val and sal is until 2 or 3 days before the program. :eek:) So, the only “proof” that we have that she was val is a state certificate that gives her free tuition the first year (never used…) Oh well! 5 years later, it doesn’t matter - though I would have liked to have her photo in the newspaper for my photo album As long as you have one or two programs with the correct info, you’ll be fine. 5 years from now, the only one who will remember is you and your mom! ;)</p>
<p>My DD ended up with her senior yearbook having no senior photo of her instead it had her ID photo in the 11th grade section :mad:
It was very sad for her, but not the end of the world, just a sour note on which to end HS…and keep forever…I think the worst part to her was that the ID photo was not nearly as good as her senior photo.</p>
<p>The issue of mispronounced names is a common one. If you have someone at the school who cares about such things, it can make a difference. Case in point … At our Community Awards Night, when we hand out scholarships for the graduating seniors, I was the presenter for the Booster Club. I was handed the six envelopes for the award winners. One student’s last name was spelled “Im.” There was a discrete slip of paper clipped to this envelope that said: <first name=“”> Im, pronounced “Em.”</first></p>
<p>Mispronounced names are awful. In our hs, our principal and coaches do not even attempt to say my D’s last name. It’s not a particularly difficult name to pronounce - but they don’t even try. They call out her first name (and usually this is not pronounced correctly either). I noticed the same trend with my 10 yr old - the coaches usually reel off the last names while playing baseball - with the exception of my son - known only by his first name!</p>
<p>I often joke that they are as famous (!) as Madonna - no need for a last name.</p>
<p>D has two years to go before graduation - wonder if they will even try to get her name right then!</p>
<p>OP - am glad that the admins are doing something to address your issue - although reprinting only 800 programs doesn’t sound like the best. You should see if they can publicly apologize for the error before introducing you as the val.</p>
<p>I am very glad the programs are being reprinted as it was the right thing for the school to do. It still bothers me that the school administration doesn’t know the top student well enough to actually know her name. I know this happens in a lot of schools, but I think you deserve better.</p>
<p>As for the name issue, my last name (ethnic Italian) was mispronounced at my own senior awards ceremony oh so many years ago. The administrator mispronounced several names, not just mine. Our class president read them at graduation and got them all correct!</p>
So there are still going to be quite a few programs with the incorrect name, but I’m just glad they are taking action to fix the problem.
As long as you have one or two programs with the correct info, you’ll be fine. 5 years from now, the only one who will remember is you and your mom! ;)</p>