School Honors Nights

[carnation]

My son's middle school tried something new this year and I liked it. First, no perfect attendance awards! Second, they had separate ceremonies on different nights for each grade. Third, they called each team up individually and each student got a folder with *all* his/her awards in it and they announced those as the student was walking. For instance, "Joe Smith: Honor Roll, Most Outstanding in Band and Science." Then onto the next kid.

We were out of there in 57 minutes! This was a ceremony that had lasted as long as 3 1/2 hours in the past..I clearly remember that year because I was hugely pregnant and after sitting on hard bleachers all that time, my legs wouldn't move. BlazerCheer and Ballerina had to almost drag me out a side door.

[KSUViolet06]

We only did the Excellence in English, Math, etc. awards in middle school.

Our HS awards event was always on the Senior's last day of school. It was in our auditorium at like 1:00. Parents were invited and seniors were dismissed after that (which was YAY because Prom was that NIGHT and we spent all day running around and being all OMGPROM!!!!")

It was weird because our awards ceremony was mandatory for ALL seniors, whether you were getting awards or not.

They formally announced the Top 10 (even though we were notified of our rankings every week and already knew), the Manhood/Womanhood Awards (think the Oscar, highest award at our HS. Your pic goes in the hallway in a frame forever lol), The big senior athlete award that I forgot, and a few other things.

They also announced who would graduate with honors/NHS.

Another thing they did was announce what colleges the Top 10, Honors, etc. grads would be attended and would note if the student would be receiving a presitigious or large scholarship.

I will admit that yes, it probably sucked to have to attend when if you were Steve Stoner who had a 2.5 and never cared about that kind of stuff. Or if you just found out like 2 days ago that you got edged out of the Top 10 because of your final grades and Suzie Topten got into your dream school when you didn't. But that's life.

[PeppyGPhiB]

Wow. We only had Awards for senior year, and only seniors and their parents were invited. We didn't have any awards in middle school or grades 9-11.

[sceniczip]

Originally Posted by Jen

Limiting awards to one or two seems really stupid - you do the absolute best than everyone else, and you get punished for it because other people want their kids to win awards they didn't actually earn.

It just sets a really crappy example that doing your best isn't actually worth it.

Ditto to all of this. If the kid legitimately wins an award then he should get it, even if it's every single one.

[southbymidwest]

Originally Posted by sceniczip

Ditto to all of this. If the kid legitimately wins an award then he should get it, even if it's every single one.

Exactly.

[aephi alum]

Originally Posted by Jen

Limiting awards to one or two seems really stupid - you do the absolute best than everyone else, and you get punished for it because other people want their kids to win awards they didn't actually earn.

It just sets a really crappy example that doing your best isn't actually worth it.

Agreed.

Back when I was in high school, each department gave awards to the top 3 or 4 students. So while a school honors night could still "sort of" turn into a "John Smith show", there were plenty of other students getting awards - e.g. the math awards would go to John Smith, Rose Tyler, and Martha Jones, while the science awards would go to John Smith, Donna Noble, and Amy Pond.

At my high school, awards were also listed in the commencement program and read out when you got your diploma. We all got little cards that we'd hand to the announcer. If you hadn't received any awards the card just had your name on it. If you had received one or more awards, they were listed on the card, e.g. "Recipient, Social Studies Department Award, English Department Award - Sarah Jane Smith". There were always three or so people who raked in a lot of awards - usually the valedictorian, salutatorian, and class president, who were the last 3 to walk - and it was traditional that the class would count their awards. "Recipient, Social Studies Department Award - " - "ONE!" - "Math Department Award - " - "TWO!" - etc. I think I hit 14... I understand that they did away with this the year after I graduated - all the awards are still printed in the program, but the only awards that are announced are valedictorian and salutatorian.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by aephi alum

Agreed.

Back when I was in high school, each department gave awards to the top 3 or 4 students. So while a school honors night could still "sort of" turn into a "John Smith show", there were plenty of other students getting awards - e.g. the math awards would go to John Smith, Rose Tyler, and Martha Jones, while the science awards would go to John Smith, Donna Noble, and Amy Pond.

aephialum, maybe that's the answer. I have mixed feelings on this whole thing. On one hand, you should get the award if you're the top dog. On the other hand, I can see where the parents came from who got an invitation and then had to sit there for the whole program after their child got Perfect Attendance and that's all--and a lot of them knew their kids were in close competition for the awards.

As a teacher, I know that usually several students are in close competition for the awards and maybe if they even gave top 3, it'd work. I don't think that everyone on every team deserves a trophy--we do far too much of that. On the other hand, there were those Smith Shows that went on and on forever and there were 4 years of those for each brother.

BTW, everyone really liked John and Joe and they are now thirtysomething lawyers.