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Illinois School Board Journal
May/June 2003

Capping those graduation hijinks

by Linda Dawson

Linda Dawson is IASB director of editorial services and Journal editor.

The strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" herald the Class of 2003 as soon-to-be graduates triumphantly march in front of admiring parents, friends, teachers, administrators and the school board. After opening words from the superintendent and speeches from selected students, the board president is ready to award the diplomas.

Their faces beaming, graduates file across the stage, grasp a diploma and shake hands with the presenter, as the assembled crowd applauds each student politely. Representing 13 years of district nurturing and learning, the new graduates file back to their seats, clutching a well-won prize. They wait patiently and quietly as fellow classmates follow the same path.

The process complete, everyone leaves in an orderly fashion. After celebratory hugs and tearful good-byes, cars disperse from the parking lot as everyone heads to a round of parties hosted by parents and filled with cake and punch.

This ideal graduation scenario is a Kodak moment. It's the epitome of what Hallmark cards extol. It's what you want from your seniors. But sometimes that's not what you get.

Instead, you get inflated beach balls bouncing around in a sea of giggling graduates.

Or students who boogey across the stage, try to high-five the superintendent and then, arms upraised like they're signaling for a touchdown, let out a whoop that can be heard in a neighboring district.

Or parents of the students whose names begin with an early letter in the alphabet trying to make a premature exit. They hastily gather their belongings, and as they beat a quick retreat, they block the view for everyone else.

Or a guy on his cell phone giving a play-by-play description of the event. Or a cell phone that rings ... and rings ... and rings ... in someone's purse.

Have graduation ceremonies gotten out of hand? Are just a few spoiling everyone's day? Or is this a sign of a total breakdown in decorum?

And if things have been dignified and sedate in your district, do you enter each graduation season with your fingers crossed, hoping for no problems with beach balls, silly string and gyrating graduates? Or has your school board considered the possibility of problems and discussed the community's expectations for this yearly high-profile moment?

For Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202, problems came to a head in 2002 during the graduation ceremony at Plainfield High School. Worse even than beach balls, students bounced inflated condoms among their ranks. News of the resulting chaos was plastered in headlines in Chicago-area newspapers.

The situation is one the board and administration never want to see repeated. And so, at the board's direction, administrators are taking a close look at ways to change the annual graduation ceremony to meet the board's ... and the community's ... expectations.

How did it get to this?

"Over the years, we had noticed an incremental erosion of the solemnity of the proceedings," said Victoria Eggerstedt, CCSD 202 board president. And other incidents seemed to reinforce a growing problem.

In 2001, the board chose to allow two students to participate in graduation despite a final-day fiasco that high school principal Lane Abrell describes as "not pretty."

"One of the two was a mid-year graduate who had just come back to visit friends," Abrell said. She and another senior went to a microphone in the cafeteria and yelled, "Food fight!" And just like the famous scene with John Belushi in "Animal House," lunch started flying across the room. The students were taken to his office, and Abrell told them they would not be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony.

The students and their parents appealed to the school board, which reversed his decision.

With that as a warm-up, the 2002 seniors were admonished to behave in the building ... and things went well, Abrell said. Unfortunately, they saved all their shenanigans for the graduation ceremony itself.

That's when the board drew its line in the sand.

"We posed the question, ‘Are we recognizing a milestone or is this a party?'" said John Harper, CCSD 202 superintendent. The board and administration came to a joint decision that they wanted a dignified ceremony.

"This is a milestone that our children are going to remember for the rest of their lives," Eggerstedt said of the board's decision to return more dignity to graduation. And with that end in mind, the staff was asked to gather information on how other districts handled their graduations and to present recommendations for changes to Plainfield's ceremony.

In addition to checking with similarly sized districts in their athletic conference, Abrell and Harper created surveys for parents and students to gather input on what they wanted. And they met with the school's Parent Teacher Organization. The community's expectations mirrored those of the board: a milestone event that, while not being somber, should reflect the pride and tradition of the school.

Parents suggested moving the ceremony from the traditional 1 p.m. to 10 a.m. to cut down on "socializing" ahead of the event, Harper said. They also supported removal of students who act inappropriately, establishment of a dress code and random searches of graduates in the staging area to confiscate items like un-inflated beach balls, silly string and air horns.

In the student surveys, Abrell said, a vast majority also supported enforcement of a dress code.

From other districts, he said, they received suggestions to pay staff to attend graduation in order to sit either at the end of the rows or among the graduates; to move the seating area farther away from the spectators; and to allow more space between the rows of graduates.

The recommended changes for this year's ceremony were presented to the board the last week in February. Even though the recommendations were taken under advisement, Eggerstedt said the board usually approves such staff recommendations without change about 90 percent of the time.

Will it work?

The recommendations Plainfield is considering have been tested in other districts with good results, according to administrators in various parts of the state.

Gary Siebert, superintendent at Eldorado Community Unit School District 4, said his district has experienced problems in the past with silly string and students doing goofy dances after they get their diplomas. At that point, his board members gave him the authority to put a stop to such graduation problems with any means he could.

Decorum has improved since Siebert began meeting with his seniors every year to explain how those actions are an embarrassment for the school and for their fellow students. "I tell them we want the people in attendance to believe they are smart enough to get a diploma," Siebert said.

And he also has the ultimate weapon for those few out of 100 who don't get the message: one more trip to the superintendent's office.

All graduates at CUSD 4 receive diploma covers instead of their actual diplomas. Once graduates have turned in their gowns, they receive the diploma that goes inside. Those who misbehave during the ceremony must bring their parents and meet with Siebert one more time to get that final piece of paper. That's not a trip most want to make.

While the students know what is expected of them, they also know they will be allowed to toss their caps in the air and celebrate when the ceremony is over. By that time, the good impression has been made and revelry is in order.

The same type of "controlled chaos" marks the ceremony at Nashville Community High School District 99.

There, Superintendent Ken Hill said, the influence from college graduations had been eroding behavior on the high school level for a number of years. In the early '90s, things really were starting to get out of hand.

Hill's answer? He meets with senior class officers to make them aware of what will be expected at graduation, and to ask for their cooperation in letting him know if "something is brewing."

When he meets with the entire senior class, which usually numbers between 120 and 140, he reminds them that, while this is their graduation, it's also a very special day for their parents and grandparents.

"I ask them to just meet me half way," Hill said. If the students promise to keep things under control, he will give them two minutes after the diplomas are awarded to take their silly string "and raise hell." Then they all march out and both sides leave happy.

If a problem arises during the ceremony, Hill said, he won't hesitate to get up and take away whatever it is that's causing the distraction: beach ball, silly string or anything else.

Hill also said he has informed his board about the "bargain" he makes with the students, and they trust him to handle the details.

Harold Ford, superintendent at Geneseo Community Unit School District 228, said he tried being subtle with some of his senior classes, which usually number about 250, "and subtle doesn't work." So for Geneseo's outdoor ceremony, Ford makes certain he has the seating spaced far enough apart with a grid of teachers around the perimeter so that those with an inclination to misbehave can be "overpowered" pretty quickly.

"It's difficult to blow up a balloon with a teacher looking down your lap," Ford said. "The time you stop them is before they get it rolling."

Plainfield changes

Many of these strategies are being considered as Plainfield's administration finalizes its recommendations. Principal Abrell said the administration already has decided it would be best to move the graduate seating area off the track and back farther onto the football field. That will deter family and friends from tossing any contraband items out to the graduates.

The actual seating rows also will be spread out, Abrell said, so that someone could get to an offending student quicker. If spectators get out of line, he also has permission to have them removed by a uniformed officer.

While Abrell knows some of these problems are inherent with having an outdoor ceremony, he said the logistics of having an indoor ceremony are just too difficult with nearly 800 graduates. If it's in the gymnasium, each graduate could only have two tickets for family members to attend. "There is no place in Joliet or Will County to go inside" to accommodate the district's numbers, he said.

The good thing about the changes is that most of them are coming straight from the parents and the students themselves. Giving those most closely involved some ownership in what will happen may help to ensure compliance with the changes.

The other positive is the reinforcement of the separation of board/superintendent roles.

By drawing a line in the sand and then examining its stakeholders' values, the Plainfield board was able to visualize an "end" for the district: a dignified ceremony to mark a milestone event for students. The means to that end have been left to the administration and staff.

The best part, according to board president Eggerstedt, is that everyone could agree that parents and students should be surveyed for their input. But that information gathering and the resulting recommendations were left to staff.

"The smaller the district," she said, "the larger the temptation is to blur the distinction between board work and staff work."

In this case, the distinction remained clear, and the expected result is a problem-free graduation ceremony that will be a source of pride for the entire district.