One of my friend’s gradutated a year later than she was supposed to. She didn’t get to walk (she switched schools mid-year, though IIRC she would have been allowed to walk at our school had she graduated). Unfortunately, she…well, I can’t describe it well since it was never properly explained to me. Let’s just say she had a psychotic break (which I think is pretty close to the truth). She was in the hospital for a while for treatments and missed a lot of school because of it. When she was getting ready to start/finish at the other school, she was informed that she had missed too many days to graduate that year (She had literally missed almost half the year).
I am happy to say that she is doing a lot better now than she was at the time.
I graduated a year early at my high school. I even got my diploma during the regular ceremony that year! My daughter hated and detested high school (She was in her Junior year), so my husband and I let her quit a couple months before summer break, and she went to get her G.E.D. She took classes for 2 months, was told she was ready to take the test, so she did. She just received her diploma about a month ago. With honors! She is currently checking out the local technology school, wanting to get into something dealing with computers. I hope it works out for her.
What is it with PE teachers? One of my best friends had to get her GED because she missed too many gym classes. I’ve had numerous students (when I was teaching HS seniors) scrambling to get that PE requirement done. It’s a really stupid reason not to graduate, but all too common apparently.
I’ve graduated from college three times and never attended a ceremony. Only time I was tempted was at GWU – Tony Bennett was the speaker, and I knew someone who might have been able to sneak me into the VIP tent.
At our local high school, the rule is: if you don’t show up for graduation practice on the morning of the ceremony, you don’t participate in the ceremony. Every year, a student (or two) tests the rule and is sorely disappointed (along with their family.) The family always protests bitterly, but the rule is always upheld. I think that would be a pretty stupid reason to miss graduation.
My brother hung around college so long that they actually sent him a letter saying that, although he had enough credits, he had not attained them in the required time period so he couldn’t graduate. I understand they don’t want seventh year seniors but graduation time is probably not the first time the issue should come up.
Luckily there was a dean at the school who wasn’t an idiot and they bent the rules so he could get his diploma.
I didn’t have time in my schedule to take my second PE class because I was too busy taking things like math and science and history and music and english and all those other wastes of time. I was told by the Powers That Be that I would have to take summer school PE, but then my principal decided that since I would be going on a 300 mile bike ride after school let out that I could use that as an independent study. A friend of mine did that too, two other girls got credit for ballet instruction using the argument that if they got hurt in gym class that it could ruin their careers as dancers (they were really that good, not just being overdramatic). The PE teacher was cool with it since she got tired of my getting hit in the head in her class anyway. I don’t remember if I had to write a paper or anything, but I might have.
The stupidest reason I’ve seen so far is my stepson.
Decided pot and booze were more important than school. He turns 22 in 5 days and still hasn’t completed the 10th grade. He should be graduating from college.
Our senior class president was allowed to walk during the ceremony but received an empty folder instead of his diploma because he had missed too many PE classes. I guess he decided he didn’t like PE and would spend his class time in the senior class officers’ office socializing instead. He had to go to summer school for PE before he could officially graduate. Dumbest thing ever.
Same with my step-daughter-to-be. Only she never went to the summer school classes, and three years later she still doesn’t have a HS diploma or GED.
Or a job.
Or anything resembling a life.
Wow, I felt like a huge dork for almost not graduating because of PE, now I feel lots better about it, considering how common it apparently is. I’m just glad they didn’t make me go to summer PE classes. The horror. I’m picturing myself being made to run laps around the football field while the teacher screams “run faster, ya commie!” He was very fond of calling his students commies.
I’m not sure this is really all that stupid, but I never did graduate high school. I felt I was totally wasting my time in high school, and I got hassled constantly, so one day I stroll into my guidance counselor’s office and tell him I’m thinking of dropping out. “Oh, you don’t have to do that, you can go to the local community college and get both high school and college credit for it!” OK, that sounds fine, but as it happens, I have to take 17 credits, and I still have all my bad high-school lack-of-giving-a-rat’s-ass habits. So I drop one course and fail another, which means I don’t have the credits to graduate high school. The GC calls me up one day and talks to me about this - he says I’ll have to graduate the following year. OK, fine. But then he calls my parents and talks to them about it. Well, that just underscored the whole pointlessness of high school for me, so I just decided I was done with it. I took the GED test (the easiest test I ever took in my life), passed, and continued going to college. I never formally dropped out of high school, I just kinda never went back.
My only regret is that I didn’t drop out much, much earlier.
