When I first heard about this story I expected the worst. I expected to hear about two kids making out (without conscience) in the middle of commencement exercises – showing a complete disregard to the people around them. It just had to be something along those lines. Yeah, I thought, “denying a kid a diploma for a kiss has to be an action that is indicative of some over-the-line activity that had to be dealt with in harsh terms.”
Here is the story from Yahoo Buzz:
For teens, there is no greater joy than graduating high school. Shaking off the shackles of education and claiming that hard-fought diploma is truly an epic day. Unfortunately, for several students at Bonny Eagle High School in Maine, their natural exuberance has led to some surprisingly serious problems.
On Friday night, when the senior class was waiting to graduate, excitement began to grow. Students bounced a large inflatable rubber duck. The noise level rose. And then came “the kiss.” When called, one student walked on stage to receive his diploma and blew a kiss to his family. The school administrator, clearly not the sentimental sort, sent the student back to his seat … sans diploma.
Uh … OK … and ….
Also from the story:
But the administrators feel they were just enforcing the rules that students agreed to. At a meeting following the debacle, school superintendent Suzanne Lukas said that “if a student doesn’t adhere to the expectations, then the consequences are clearly spelled out.”
This isn’t the first time that rambunctious (dare we say “fun”?) behavior affected a graduation ceremony at Bonny Eagle. “Four years ago we had some issues with silly string and beach balls,” said Lukas.
Silly string …
Beach balls …
Seriously?
These are kids … young adults.
OK, you expect a certain degree of decorum, but … come on.
This heinous act of blowing a kiss to your family was met with being denied a diploma. I suppose this reaction is better than shipping him off to Guantanamo Bay and waterboarding him, but still quite the overreaction (based on what I’ve read) to Kissgate.
Some people move into positions of authority and forget what it’s like to be human … what it’s like to be a kid.
Perhaps that’s the real crime here.
