Wearing Other People's Graduation Regalia

[carnation]

All I can figure out is that they must not check the kids before they march in or that whoever checks them has no clue who's supposed to wear what. Come to think of it, I believe that someone said that the coaches were in there with the graduates. (Mystery solved.)

I still think that the honor society and honor grad faculty should check them before they march. Last year, the NHS advisor refused to let the members who had done dual college/high school enrollment wear their stoles because they hadn't come to any meetings--they were taking their college classes. Punishing them for excelling! There was a huge uproar and the national office of the NHS said there was nothing they could do. One of Tall Son's sisters found her old NHS stole and told him to wear it anyway but he said it really didn't matter to him anymore and we didn't want him getting jerked out of line. Now I realize he probably wouldn't have but the difference was that he had earned his stole. These kids earned nothing.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by carnation

All I can figure out is that they must not check the kids before they march in or that whoever checks them has no clue who's supposed to wear what. Come to think of it, I believe that someone said that the coaches were in there with the graduates. (Mystery solved.)

I still think that the honor society and honor grad faculty should check them before they march. Last year, the NHS advisor refused to let the members who had done dual college/high school enrollment wear their stoles because they hadn't come to any meetings--they were taking their college classes. Punishing them for excelling! There was a huge uproar and the national office of the NHS said there was nothing they could do. One of Tall Son's sisters found her old NHS stole and told him to wear it anyway but he said it really didn't matter to him anymore and we didn't want him getting jerked out of line. Now I realize he probably wouldn't have but the difference was that he had earned his stole. These kids earned nothing.

Whoa.

Your son has graduated now so you may not care what happens next year, but do you want to express this concern to the school so they can make changes? It may be more trouble than it's worth.

[carnation]

We will have 3 daughters at the high school next year. I plan to talk to the principal but I have to be very professional because my husband teaches there and teachers are being RIFed left and right in Georgia.

Luckily, the NHS sponsor retired at the end of last year or there would have been huge trouble from a lot of us. Even though her daughter is a Pi Phi!

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

No, but kids do the darndest and dumbest things.

This.

Originally Posted by DrPhil

I've never heard of a college or university forbidding cords and stoles.

I have.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

I have.

Was it to achieve uniformity and/or because attention whores have adorned their caps and gowns with crazy things in the past?

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by carnation

Luckily, the NHS sponsor retired at the end of last year or there would have been huge trouble from a lot of us. Even though her daughter is a Pi Phi!

I do not see what A has to do with B.

[carnation]

If she hadn't been leaving, I would have led the fight against her but that made it pointless. I was being facetious about not going after her due to her daughter's being a Pi Phi.

Also, a lot of parents and students feel that it cheapens all the work that the kids did to earn those cords and stoles if another kid fools around for 4 years and then ganks his sibling's regalia. I suppose you could say that it was a form of perping.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by carnation

If she hadn't been leaving, I would have led the fight against her but that made it pointless. I was being facetious about not going after her due to her daughter's being a Pi Phi.

Also, a lot of parents and students feel that it cheapens all the work that the kids did to earn those cords and stoles if another kid fools around for 4 years and then ganks his sibling's regalia. I suppose you could say that it was a form of perping.

You could argue that, but I don't think it's true. Cheapening it would be granting everyone honors status no matter their GPA, some kid being a typical teenager doesn't hurt anything. Perping is different in that you're representing something more than status by those letters. It's annoying but I just don't see that it's worth complaining about, administration has enough to do on graduation day than to play regalia police.

[LatinaAlumna]

Originally Posted by carnation

Today, our 8th child graduated from high school. We noticed that one girl--who's maybe the biggest B at the school--was wearing honors regalia and a teacher stared at her and said, "That must be her older sister's; believe me, she didn't graduate with any honors." (We've known the kid for years and we figured that out early on. Evil jerk.)

I asked my son about it and he said that a lot of people walked with friends' or siblings' past regalia. I was ; as a former college professor, I can't believe that someone would do that. This son didn't graduate with honors--he was 0.2 of a point short--and we wouldn't have dreamed of heaping his older siblings' regalia on him.

Has anyone else heard of this?

I haven't heard of this at high schools (I've found it to be common at the university level). But it does remind me of a funny story. When I graduated from high school, those of us receiving academic honors were presented with grad stolls at an assembly prior to commencement. When the cheer squad saw this, they decided to run out and buy these funky looking cheer medals with purple cords to wear to graduation. Mind you, several of these girls were benched for having lower than a 2.0 GPA.

[als463]

Originally Posted by carnation

All I can figure out is that they must not check the kids before they march in or that whoever checks them has no clue who's supposed to wear what. Come to think of it, I believe that someone said that the coaches were in there with the graduates. (Mystery solved.)

I still think that the honor society and honor grad faculty should check them before they march. Last year, the NHS advisor refused to let the members who had done dual college/high school enrollment wear their stoles because they hadn't come to any meetings--they were taking their college classes. Punishing them for excelling! There was a huge uproar and the national office of the NHS said there was nothing they could do. One of Tall Son's sisters found her old NHS stole and told him to wear it anyway but he said it really didn't matter to him anymore and we didn't want him getting jerked out of line. Now I realize he probably wouldn't have but the difference was that he had earned his stole. These kids earned nothing.

Dr.Phil may be right about it being more trouble than it is worth. One thing I can say is congratulations to your children for excelling and doing so well in school. Didn't you say your children ended up going Greek? If not, I bet kids with so much intellect would be a great asset to any organization! If they are Greek, their organizations got lucky to have some great members wearing their letters! Doing well in academics is always a great thing! Good job at raising such smart kids, Carnation!