Last June, my daughter was an eighth grader at Brownell. The
moment we had all been dreading was upon us – eighth grade
promotion.
Last June, my daughter was an eighth grader at Brownell. The moment we had all been dreading was upon us – eighth grade promotion.
In some ways, we hated to see our little girl grow up, but Carly was born ready for high school, and the time had come. The highlight of the end of middle school should be a nice subdued promotion ceremony. The kind of event held at schools all aver the country. Unfortunately, I knew that Gilroy was a different kind of town. I wasn’t looking forward to going to my own child’s promotion.
I know that there are parents who insist that their child needs a cap and gown for getting through kindergarten. These are the insane parents. At Rucker School, the elementary promotion ceremony is very subdued. There are no fancy speeches and the kids look forward to cake and punch. The highlight of the day is when each student gets to ring the big bell that sits outside the school. That scenario changes drastically when these same students get to middle school.
The eighth grade promotion ceremony in Gilroy resembles a three-ring circus. The hoopla associated with a child passing from eighth grade to freshman year of high school is ridiculous. I actually had to attend the ceremony two years ago, because my daughter was in the Brownell Band, and they needed to play during the ceremony. I hadn’t planned on staying, but after waiting for 25 minutes to find a parking space out at Gavilan College, I decided to hang around outside until the ceremony was over.
Last year’s event was so crowded, so loud and so much a fire hazard that I could hardly wait to high tail it out of there and get my daughter to the eighth grade dance. Of course, there is no way to “high tail” out of the traffic mess that ensues once the ceremony is over. I sat for over two hours in a sweltering gym, where balloons obstructed any potential glimpse of my daughter as she walked across the stage. Instead of being happy for her, I actually starting calculating when I would next have to suffer through this torturous event.
In addition, the promotion ceremony needs to be shorter and much more low-key. Speakers should be the principal of Brownell and the student body president. No offense is meant to anyone on the school board or even the superintendent, but the students just want out at this point in the evening. With a class of 360, it takes a great deal of time to call out all the names and hand over a promotion paper to each child who walks across the stage.
I was thrilled to hear that this year Gavilan is setting down some ground rules for Brownell’s use of the gym for the promotion. Balloons will be banned from the gym, and each family will receive tickets for admission to the ceremony.
Some families might not be happy about the change, but I applaud the school for taking these steps. I have heard people say that for some children, this will be their only opportunity to walk across the stage.
Shame on those students and their parents. I believe that some parents overcompensate at the middle school promotion because they are too lazy to do their job. It is the responsibility of each family to make sure that their child graduates from high school. Eighth grade promotion should not be a life changing event. Each family who convinces their child that the eighth grade promotion is a graduation ceremony needs a little reality check. The message sent to a child of 13 or 14 should be this; congratulations on being admitted to high school. Four years later, when that child graduates from high school, they have earned a balloon bouquet.
The memory of last year’s event at Gavilan still haunts me. Hopefully, by the time my two younger kids reach the eighth grade, we will have scaled back the middle school promotion ceremony to be an onsite event held after school.
If we as a school district want to set the bar higher, it must start with the premise that at a minimum, all students who enter our schools in kindergarten will graduate from high school.
