I can see the school’s point. The kid already gets an honor stole, given by the school. No outside decorations or awards allowed.
As a semi-counterpoint, my school allows certain outside awards to be worn at graduation. We don’t have a school Honor award, so the students wear one from the California Scholarship Federation. So I am quite certain there will be students wearing CSF cords, AVID stoles and NFL (National Forensic League) cords next week.
If I was graduating from something nowadays, I’d wear my Worf sash. Qapla’ !
Obviously I’m in the minority, but I always thought the giving of flowers at youth dance recitals quite excessive. At least at the run-of-the-mill dance class recitals, as opposed to something where the students had to audition.
So there you go. What other stoles are next? They did do it for the right reason.
Which is why kayaker’s current solution is an excellent choice. Avoid the inappropriate and time-consuming theatrics of presenting the young recital performer with elaborate floral tributes on stage, but make sure that she gets them at the stage door, so to speak.
What other occasions allow a dad to give his five year old daughter a bouquet of flowers?
Also, what’s wrong with a little excess now and then?
How about a highschool prohibiting facial hair and banning their valedictorian because of it.
No, it’s awesome that you give your daughter flowers! 
I think the point was just that it may come across as a bit “special snowflakey” to dramatically present her with a huge attention-grabbing bouquet in front of all her classmates who aren’t getting bouquets (and in many cases may not have anyone who can afford to give them bouquets).
Sure, their budget difficulties aren’t your problem, but after all a student recital is supposed to be a community display of support and encouragement for all the students, not just a chance for individual parental adoration. It’s not just about you appreciating and praising your own kid, it’s about the audience as a whole appreciating and praising all the students.
So your individual extravagant gestures of appreciation singling out your own daughter, which in themselves I think are an adorable idea, do seem better suited to the parking lot or the car than to the stage itself.
Now that is some bizarre shit. Kid had a small goatee. Who the hell doesn’t allow high school seniors to have facial hair? Except maybe military academies, which this was not?
Absolutely any time, occasion or none. 
In terms of what is wrong with a little excess, what I saw in terms of flowers at performances was grossly out of proportion with the level of skill/ability/effort on display. I generally think it desirable that recognition reflect the degree of accomplishment - especially when done publicly. Of course, that’s just MOI’m no proven super-parent.
And as you must realize, presenting a big bouquet where the other kids can see, might result in other parents having to address concerns of why those children didn’t get bouquets. No reason you should necessarily care, but such reactions are IMO understandable.
Baton Rouge. I would have expected somewhere in Utah.
My theory- this is Texas. There are three types of people: football players, cheerleaders, and the great unwashed. I’m betting someone had a stroke because the school was daring to honor non-athletes.
I cannot provide a cite (I don’t have a way to play the little tape cassette from 1995), but the other little girls didn’t get bouquets because compared to my daughter their ballet renditions from Pocohantas pretty much stunk up the place.
/hijack.
Yeah, I can see “only the school’s own awards displayed” as something reasonable, though that should be something to advise seniors and their parents early in the schoolyear. If anything it helps the school not having to do vetting of whose award is it you’re seeking to display.
Where the school is going to get in trouble is over the fact that other schools in the same district allow the stoles. Therefore it is a site-specific ban on NHS paraphenalia, and that likely won’t hold up to a challenge to the school board. Or in court, if it came to that. Such a policy would be blatantly discriminatory.
I wonder if the commencement program highlights special achievements. In the program for my graduation ceremony, all the NHS kids got a distinguishing footnote by their names, along with footnotes for special scholarship awards, membership in the Top 10%, and valedictorian/salutatorian. I don’t remember having NHS regalia, but I do have a vague memory of wearing something “special” for something (I think it might have been something signifying which magnent program I belonged to).
I don’t have a problem with the school not bothering with special stoles. I’d have more of a problem if the school wasn’t allowed to recognize high-achieving students at all, but there’s no evidence that’s happening.
And which group would it be illegally discriminatory against?Discrimination isn’t illegal - if it were, every job would have to be filled by lottery as you couldn’t discriminate among the applicants based on education, experience or even who applied first. Discrimination based on certain characteristics is what’s illegal - and membership in an honor society isn’t one of those characteristics.
Texas? How many of them were packing heat?
It wasn’t in Texas, but back in sixth grade I won an award for academics. The prize was a brand new baseball.*
*The principal was also the head coach, and his ulterior motive probably was to promote athletic achievement so that we could finally beat St. John’s Lutheran.
**Not to be critical of BobLibDem’s post as ignorant hyperbole, but Texas schools routinely honor students who perform well academically. For instance, there’s the All-State Academic Team:
"The TASSP Academic Excellence Recognition Program was established to honor and recognize high school seniors who have demonstrated excellence in areas of academic achievement, test scores and writing skills. The program will recognize twenty graduating Texas seniors with an unrestricted scholarship of $500. In addition, these twenty winners will be introduced at the general session of the TASSP Summer Workshop held in Austin in June and also honored there with a luncheon featuring the students, parents and their principals. Thirty finalists will be recognized locally with plaques donated by Jostens.
Who is Eligible?
Each Texas high school whose principal is a member of TASSP may nominate ONE graduating senior for this recognition.
What is the Selection Process?
• Each nominee will receive a score based on their G.P.A., SAT or ACT score. This score accounts for 75% of the nominee’s total score.
• The essays portion of the application is scored by the Academic Excellence Committee and will account for the remaining 25% of the total score.
• Scoring of the essays is done without knowledge of authorship.
• The top twenty will be selected as the All-State Academic Team. The next thirty will be selected as Finalists.
Kinda proves BLD’s point, doesn’t it?
Somewhat facetious
As soon as Texas high schools start building $60 million libraries, computer facilities, science wings, etc, I’ll accept that football doesn’t come first.