Posted on 05/09/2018 11:50:13 AM PDT by EdnaMode
GREENVILLE, S.C. – A $1,030 fine for cheering at a graduation ceremony?
An administrator at a South Carolina school warned students and parents about the possibility, according to the Greenville News.
The newspaper reported that a slide shown at a school assembly said the following:
Since graduation is a dignified and solemn occasion, graduating seniors and their guests should behave appropriately. Please ask your guests not to call out, cheer, whistle, or applaud during the reading of names and presentation of diplomas.
The citation for family members yelling out is $1,030.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox59.com ...
The cheering, horns, etc, are the worst part for most of the rest of the students and for the faculty and staff sitting through the ceremony.
You can’t hear the next two or three names of students who follow and it frequently extends the time needed to get everyone through with the recognition they deserve.
The last thing most students want is to have the ceremonies take longer than it should. They’ve been sitting for hours, usually in a warm auditorium or in the direct sunlight in hot regalia and most of them want to march out, greet their families with their diploma, and get on with their personal celebrations.
These individual displays are nothing more than an example of bad manners and being inconsiderate.
I’ve sat on the stage through dozens of these, including several of my own. Holding up the flow for individual recognition is not appreciated by the larger audience or participants.
I’m referring to university graduations although I’ve attended a number of high school graduations over the years and those are worse. I won’t attend any HS graduation other than for my grandchildren.
I heard about a graduation my father (a High School teacher and Senior Class sponsor) was overseeing.
He made it clear to the graduating seniors that cheering and disrupting the ceremony would not be tolerated. Those doing so would be asked to leave. They were to tell their families.
Just so there was no confusion, an announcement was made at the beginning of the ceremony making it clear that those who disrupted the ceremony by cheering would be asked to leave.
Sure enough, 10 minutes or so into the ceremony a rather large...urban family decided to give a rousing standing ovation when their daughter’s name was called.
The ceremony immediately stopped. Security swept in and they were politely asked to leave. They refused, citing that a cousin was also graduating and they wanted to stay. The daughter was at the place in the stage where they handed them the diploma (a fake, they got their real one later) and all the dignitaries on stage were standing still, with their hands behind their backs, not handing it to her.
The security people stood there, the family sat down and refused to move. After a couple of minutes someone in the audience began to boo. Within seconds it seemed everyone was booing. The daughter began to cry. Reluctantly, and with much attitude, the family stood up and left the auditorium. As soon as the door closed behind them, they started up the ceremony again.
There were no more disruptions.
As I remember it, the family attempted to file suit against the school and my father. The judge basically asked if they had been instructed to not cheer and what the consequences would be if they did. When they agreed that they had been so instructed, he dismissed the case.
How about a 30 second time out for each loud cheer? Sure, everyone suffers but it won’t be long until the crowd hates the cheering family and boos them.
It does seem like a very random amount.
And then there are the garbs the kids are wearing under the gowns they don’t even close. . .not to mention the shoes. It has really become a side show over the years.
...and that the diploma was a gift.
Put the fine in the student’s transcript record. No transcripts can be released until the fine is paid.
Screw the loud rude obnoxious audience members.
Good point.
“Or perhaps it would be better to find a form of discipline more appropriate for this infraction.”
I agree.
Double the fine.
That wouldn’t even be possible here. You just deal with it.
Our University Commencement is at 8:30AM. That will weed out many people. College commencement is at 3:30PM.
Punishing the innocent is never a good strategy
That’s how you handle it.
Good for the folks in charge.
Simple segregate graduation
>>How about the dean reading the names just wait until the noise dies down?<<
Maybe parents and friends don’t want to wait 10 hours for a graduation ceremony?
What is sad is they have to monetarily incentivize polite civilized behavior.
Well, that’ll boost alumni contributions!
“People should know how to behave in public - particularly at events that justify some solemnity.
Sadly, there are impolite Americans who do not. OK, so they need to be told
Even more sadly, then there are entitled and self-centered Americans, who after being told, still insist on acting like a fool. What to do with those people?”
That includes not standing or kneeling during the anthem.
Per your question, perhaps if everyone else stood and booed during the cheer that would drown them out and embarrass them. Probably not.
I remember my high school graduation ceremony conducted in early June in Arizona over 50 years ago. It was outside in an open grassy commons area with a stage and folding chairs.
One of the things I distinctly remember was all of the clapping, yelling, whooping and hollering going on from the families in the crowd.
Graduating your kid from high school is a big deal to a lot of families.
This "administrator" decides a fine of over a thousand bucks is appropriate for someone to celebrate the event of their kid's matriculation from high school?
And just how does this fuddy-duddy expect to impose these fines and then collect them? What, they're going to have a decibel-meter like a speed radar gun in order to pick out who is too loud or celebratory?
Liberals never think that far ahead. They just don't want anybody to have any fun.
Liberals sure know how to be big sticks-in-the-mud.
I graduated high school in 1976. No one cheered, there was polite applause at the end. I went to my nephew’s graduation a couple of years ago. It was chaos. Some idiots even had air horns. I fully approve of the fine.
High school graduations are celebratory events.
They are not church services or funerals.
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