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Petition Tag - graduation
It is not right to let one of the students who was involved in the fight at song practice to graduate and not let the other student walk. It is really unfair.
2. Stop Georgia Tech's Graduation Ticket Policy 
The Georgia Institute of Technology has recently introduced a ticketing policy that would allow graduating students a maximum of six guests at their commencement ceremony.
This action has come as a surprise to most and has angered many who have heard about it. Graduation is one of the biggest accomplishments a person will ever have and his/her friends and family should be allowed to be present to view their loved one graduate as opposed to having to view it online.
Students have contributed monetarily to the institution, and will be asked to contribute at commencement after they graduate via donations. These prior and future contributions should allow students to be granted their choice of guests as has been the policy previously at the institution.
I would also like to offer some possible solutions to the problems because I understand that the new pavilion can only hold a certain amount of people.
1. Have the ceremony at the Georgia Dome.
2. Split the ceremonies into morning and afternoon commencement as was done in Alexander Memorial Coliseum to allow more tickets.
***As of May 18, 2012 Principal Loftus is allowing clubs who purchased cords wear them at graduation. Thank you to all who signed.***
Graduation cords are a representation of a student's accomplishments throughout high school. Cords are earned by students who work harder and excel in a certain field where others are simply satisfactory.
At Colonial High School there are over 30 clubs. Whether a club meets under similar interests or to devote hours to community service, a cord is earned and well deserved.
It is absurd to say multiple cords devalue honor societies. The honor societies are privileged to a white gown no other club is awarded. Understandably, everyone cannot receive a cord for doing just anything. Therefore, instead of prohibiting all non-honor cords, setting a high standard to receive a cord will allow all achievements to be recognized at graduation.
Furthermore, it is inconsiderate to inform the student body of this new policy last minute after several clubs have already purchased cords with Mr. Loftus' approval - not to mention, students spent all year to go above and beyond to receive their award for extracurricular activities.
Parents and other concerned persons can contact Principal Loftus at 407-482-6301.
4. Georgia State University Graduation Ceremony for the Class of 2012
Georgia State University has a phenomenal history. The University originated in 1913 and within 98 years, graduating students were acknowledged in the year that they graduated.
The year before their centennial anniversary, Georgia State University made a horrible decision to hold only one graduation ceremony per year.
It is a wonder how Georgia State University came up with this horrendous idea. To shove the class of 2012 into the graduation ceremony of 2013. This is an insult to the class of 2012 and an imposition to the class of 2013.
Not once, did Georgia State University ask its students to pay their tuition the year after classes. So why must their students wait for their deserved rights to a ceremony after the new year?
The graduation ceremony has become a charade in the eyes of Georgia State University Office of the Registrar. What they fail to understand is that the ceremony is more than caps, gowns and rolled up pieces of paper, it is a right of passage in the western world. To eliminate the dignity of this ceremony is to destroy our culture and rights as students.
5. Stop Georgia High School Graduation Exams
If you graduated in 2000 or 2001 you were forced to take an exam to receive a High School diploma or Certificate Of Attendence that credit you for completing 12 years of school but would prevent you from going to college.I was a victim of this and I will not sit by and let this destroy the next generation to come.
Help assist me in this petition to stop all Graduation exams here in the state of Georgia.
6. Wearing of Blood Cord during Graduation!
We the students of Columbia High School are entitled to the right to wear our blood cords for giving our blood for a better cause.
Hamish Jacobs, a Grade 12 student in Raymond, Alberta, Canada, has been told he cannot wear his family's Forbes tartan kilt at his graduation.
The school division superintendent says it is against the district dress code.
Hamish is proud of his heritage and wearing a kilt is widely accepted as appropriate clothing at a graduation.
Scott made a mistake and he should be given a second chance.
9. Improvements for the 2010 Commencement Ceremony
Caldwell College has limited graduation admission for years and is unwilling to change. As of the Fall semester of 2009, graduation of 2010 was supposed to be moved to another location making graduation open to more guest. However, things have changed. The College is able to use money, they supposedly do not have to improve the property and other programs but can not use money to improve our graduation.
This petition is to have a graduation that the graduates will be proud of. This is our day, so let's have it the way we want. Let our voices be heard.
Please help by signing and adding your ideas for graduation. It is not too late to change graduation.
10. Prayer at Greenwood High School 2010 Graduation Ceremony
A senior at Greenwood Community High School in Greenwood, Indiana has filed a lawsuit via the ACLU against GCHS due to a prayer at the 2010 graduation ceremony. The student made the case that it was against his Constitutional rights, while in fact - it would be taking away the prayer that would violate the Constitution.
The Class of 2010 voted on a prayer, which was the democratic way to organize such an issue. The class voted "yes", and the select student decided to take a stand against it.
In no way would a prayer be intended to harm anyone - only wish the Class of 2010 well. Many seniors feel that their right to a traditional ceremony that they've been looking forward to for 12 years of their life is being taken away. It is easy to say "good luck" to someone, as it occurs all of the time. However, when one takes the special initiative to call you out and say a prayer for you to any God they so desire, there is an added sense of care and concern for all.
The Class of 2010 has worked hard to get where they are today and deserves the right to govern the ceremony in a way that they choose, which includes a prayer that has already been voted on.
11. Improving Education for Special Needs and the Disabled in Public High Schools
About 1 in 150 children has been diagnosed with autism, based on a 2002 study done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This can be rephrased as being a rate of 6.6 per 1,000 children. This outdated census is based on results conducted in only 14 out of the 50 states in the United States of America. Nor does this study include the most populous states such as California, Texas or Florida. Clearly the study is limited and the numbers reflect only the tip of a monumental and critical iceberg. There is little interest or regard for a problem that needs to be solved.
One problem is that children are being diagnosed too late, a good amount of time after they have already started school. Autism is hard to detect in its early stages, and its symptoms are not obvious until its victims have reached school-age. That is when there is a distinguishable difference between the child and its companions as well as the rate of learning and progress. Many studies prove that autism can be diagnosed by age 1. That is true. However, that is if parents take their children to doctors and specialists for evaluation. If there are no symptoms and no ways to look for early signs, about three-fourths of children will begin to appear to have the condition at age 9 years. This is according to a report in the June issue of archives of General Psychiatry. This means that before the child reaches the age of nine, he/she will be shuffled through his/her early years of school and then fall far behind other students upon diagnosis.
Another problem is that after these children have been diagnosed, they are placed in cramped environments labeled “Special Education”. Overcrowded classrooms and scarce teachers for the growing population of autistic students is one obvious aspect. These classes consist of teachers who work with a wide variety of disabled students from learning disabilities to speech or language impairments, mental retardation, emotional disturbance, multiple disabilities, hearing impairments, orthopedic impairments, visual impairments, autism, combined deafness and blindness, and traumatic brain injury. These classes are not much better in providing aid, the only difference is that the students with disabilities are removed from “normal” society and grouped together where teachers will attempt to educate the wide variety of disabilities similarly. According to executive director Kim Sweet of Advocates for Children of New York, only “a small number of special education teachers work with students with severe cases of mental retardation or autism, primarily teaching them life skills and basic literacy.”
A fourth problem is pointed out in an article by Thurlow, Sinclair and Johnson. Published in the Publication of National Center on Secondary Education and Transition, it states that “the dropout rate for students with disabilities is approximately twice that of general education students (Blackorby & Wagner, 1996)… and have been identified as being among the lowest performing students on current high-stakes tests… These scores have consequences for schools and often for students. Increasingly, high-stakes tests have significant consequences for students—they determine whether they are promoted from one grade to the next, or graduate from high school with a standard diploma (Thurlow & Johnson, 2000). Students who experience failure or who see little chance of passing these tests may decide not to stay in school—because either they will not be promoted or they will not graduate with a standard diploma… Accountability without the necessary opportunities and support for youth with disabilities to achieve high standards may increase the rate at which they drop out of school and fail to successfully complete school.”
In today’s state, helping students develop emotionally, feel comfortable in social situations, and be aware of socially acceptable behavior is not enough “general education” to equip them for the real world. The effects of general certifications versus advanced certifications to teach in private schools for autism are vastly different. The difference is that private schools receive enough funding (from parents) to effectively train students while public schools only have enough to get by. One example of an effective private school is the McCarton School. By the end of 2007, five of the 23 children in the school will be mainstreamed back into their districts into regular classes. Private schools use many tools that public schools can’t afford to use which include: intensive speech therapy, occupational therapy, sensory integration, etc. to “teach the children to function in their community and in their homes—in the places they actually live”, according to Feldman who is an instructor at the McCarton School holding a PhD. in psychology. The key is that their teachers have specialized training- something that many schools lack.
Does it make any sense at all that in a society where the rate of autism is steadily rising year after year, our school budgets continue to be cut more and more year after year? That is like withdrawing from a deposit in the bank while obliviously expecting to never run out even without making more deposits and at the same being shocked that the interest rate of return in our savings is decreasing. The more you put in, the greater the interest rate of return that our society will have. Children are the future. To take money from the future, is to set the nation up for doom. What kind of nation will it be in 20 years from today or even 30 years, when high school drop-outs are our voters and politicians while special needs adults join the growing number of homeless people? It will be a nation void of stable citizens producing stable incomes to support the social security system. Eventually, the system will crumble from the burden.
If governments need further proof that this crisis is real, let them look no further. Let them observe the increasing rate at which private schools are opening to make up for the obvious lack and inefficiency in public schools. Dr. Cecilia McCarton, Professor of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine founded the McCarton Center for Developmental Pediatrics in 1998. She founded the McCarton School based on the increasing number of parents searching hopelessly for a cure, for treatment, for improvement, a sign or anything to relieve. “The numbers of autistic children we began to see in our Center suddenly became an avalanche. We would be giving therapy to these children and there would be no schools for them, no places for them to go to after age five. Autism overtook us,” she writes.
Let governments observe the flooding of public schools with autism and the inability of small private schools to keep up with demand. Additional solutions for inadequate education involve the increase of funding so that the range of influence and therapy can expand and provide more benefit from the use of IEP’s rather than requiring the use of such plans and not providing tools to carry them out. Public schools can be slowly turned into similar replicas of private school systems.
A small but growing number of districts are modeled after private schools with their personalized environments and highly qualified teachers. Health coverage is often brought up as an alternative to private schools, except health coverage does everything but that…cover. The responsibility is left to the schools.
Today, under P.L.102-119, all schools must offer special educational services and, unfortunately, the government ensures that only the bare minimum is done.Public education is not broken, we just spend too little on our schools and waste too much on less important issues.
12. Let Amanda Walk in Graduation
Amanda Stancil has been a model student her whole academic career and has even earned a place in the National Honor Society.
FACTS:
* Amanda was NOT involved in the planning or implementation of the prank.
* She was NOT willingly and did not intend on harming school property.
* She admits that it was a poor decision to buy the glue for her peer even though she did NOT know the extent of the "prank" they planned.
Therefore, the consequences for those involved in the prank should be graded according to the actions of each individual.
In addition, all of Amanda's academic career should be taken into account before a decision to disallow an honorable student to participate in the graduation ceremony.
Yes, there should be consequences, but they should be appropriate for the actual harm done. One size punishment does not fit every inappropriate decision.
13. Fair and Open Graduation Policy
Every year the student drop out rate has shown an increase in West High School alone. In 2004, 22 students from Corning West dropped out of school. In 2005, 30 students from West High School dropped out. In 2006, 34 students dropped out of school from West.
International Students are allowed to walk across the Graduation Stage with their peers and be given a Diploma recognizing their accomplishments.
The Corning School District has attempted August Graduation Ceremonies without success. Typically, each year in Corning School District August Seniors do not have the opportunity for a graduation ceremony due to lack of success in the past.
Seniors that do not "technically" graduate until August are allowed to process in with their peers and remain seated during the Graduation Ceremony.
August graduates who sell magazine quota do not receive the same privileges, such as walking across the "Graduation Stage", but are given the cap and gown to remain seated.
Elmira College allows Seniors lacking 9 credits to commence with their peers, giving them a blank diploma.
14. Gibbs Senior High School Graduation 2008
Graduation is a major milestone in our lives and by limiting it to only four people, we can't have any of our extended family and friends come and celebrate this special time with us.
15. Save Rutgers College classes '09 and '10 graduations
The several colleges that made up Rutgers were always granted their own ceremonies with their own traditions. When these colleges were combined into the School of Arts and Sciences future generations lost this privilege.
While future generations may not have individual colleges there are still classes entitled to a separate ceremony for each college.
This amalgamation also denied the opportunity for the Rutgers College classes of 2009 and 2010 to claim the Rutgers college ring that they are entitled to as well.
16. Edinburgh MBChB Graduation
The University of Edinburgh has shown this year's cohort of Medicine graduates complete disrespect regarding our graduation ceremony.
The ceremony was initially moved from it's own slot in July to one on 28th June, instantly clashing with our shadowing week which we all need to undertake as a requirement for our jobs.
The ceremony was alotted to a time on 28th June when many other graduates of other courses will too be graduating, in the same session, unfairly limiting ticket availability for both those graduates of Medicine and the other graduates from the School of Biomedical Sciences, School of Divinity and School of Health in Social Science in attendance that afternoon. Two tickets per person is simply unacceptable. The event is likely to resemble something of a cattle market with so many graduates in attendance for one ceremony.
To add insult to injury, the university has "special" ceremonies set aside for graduates of Veterinary Medicine and Law. Graduates for these ceremonies get a minimum of 4 tickets per graduand and a ceremony solely for those graduates. We do not believe as graduates of Medicine we are in any way superior to a graduate of any other degree. We believe that graduation from any degree is a signficant achievement. We believe graduates of all courses should be treated the same.
We do not understand why of all degrees undertaken, if Medicine is not to be regarded as a degree that confers signficant acheivment or in need of a "special" ceremony of it's own, why Veterinary Medicine and Law continue to be treated as such. Medicine in Edinburgh has a far greater heriatage than that of any other degree taught at the university - Medicine has been taught in Edinburgh since the early sixteenth century, Veterinary Medicine only since the early nineteenth century.
We believe that two tickets per graduate is simply insufficent in recognising the conferment of a degree. We believe this fact is made more insulting by the moving of our ceremony to an inconvenient date and by the "special" ceremonies set aside for Law and Veterinary Medicine.
17. Graduation Ceremony to be held as Previously planned
It has come to the attention of the children and parents of the graduating class of 2007 from Mattole Valley Charter School that certain parties are opposed to having the graduation ceremony at the Grenada Berean Church on June 8, 2007.
Those opposing the location of the ceremony are forcing the school to make a location change by threat of legal action.
The school is trying to find a location suitable and in doing so has changed the location and time to Thursday June 14th at the Ford Theater at COS.
18. Ban Graduation in a Church
The idea of graduation in a church imposes on personal belief and the decision to practice religion as an individual. The new principal, Sid Bailey, is a member of the Phoenix First Assembly.
The idea that our football field is too small to hold a graduation is false. Football games alone have been known to hold over 2,000 fans. Administration has refused to accept reasonable solutions to the issue and have listened yet not taken into consideration of what the students would prefer.
This was my first ceremony at OWC and might be my last. There were so many people there, who were also receiving a degree or an award, or their GED, that there wasn't any place to stand in the courtyard of the auditorium.
During the ceremony, Dr. Richburg did mention that this was the largest group ever to graduate OWC. It took three hours for all the awards and degrees to be handed out, and for everyone to say their part.
Some of my family members had gotten sick during the commencement and the whole family used this as an opportunity to escape, just to get away from the crowd. Toward the end there, I vowed not to endure this type of graduation again.
20. ADDITIONAL GRADUATION AT BETA TECH
August 3, 2006
This petition is to state that here at Beta Tech we should have more than one graduation date.
A student should not have to wait almost an entire year to walk across a stage in a cap and gown that they pay for.
21. Graduation For Medical Front Office Students
April 26, 2006
The subject matter of this petition is to obtain a graduation ceremony for those students who complete Medical Front Office classes parts 1-3.
22. Dr. Scott for Graduation Speaker
We are requesting to have Dr. Rob Scott be the "keynote" speaker at the Chiropractic Graduation Ceremony on August 6, 2005. We understand that he has been asked to speak as the outgoing Dean.
As a class we would like to hear a motivational speach from Dr. Scott, not a speach about being an alumnus of the school and supporting the national organizations. We also do not think it is fair to have him represent the school when he is no longer employed by the university.
23. Opposition to the Ohio Graduation Test
The creation of the OGT as a mandatory reuqirement for the graduation in the state of Ohio has aroused great concern in teachers, parents, and thousands of students. The implementation of this test has been substandard; the scores of 2004's OGT clearly represent the distorted expectations of the test's creators.
The Ohio Department of Education has assured educators that the test requirements will be revised. However, this leaves many still wondering if these revisions will be enough to ensure an appropriately challenging test.
Unfortunately for the graduatiing class of 2007, they will become the guinea pigs of the "improved OGT."
We, the undersigned registered students of San Diego State University (SDSU), hereby petition the Theatre, Film and Television Department of SDSU, to submit to the students request to have Theatre 525 also known as Stage Combat offered in the next school year 2005-2006.
Stage Combat is a highly popular class for all classmen in the major Theatre Arts. Theatre 525 has been utilized by students in their forever attempt to improve on their skills as actors and professionals in the Theatre industry at SDSU and after graduation.
This personal enrichment is a great addition to ones confidence, health and mind.
The Graduation Pledge has been adopted by Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, McMaster, Dalhousie, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and UBC to name a few. The pledge would be tailored to Schulich, but would be something like: "I________ pledge to explore and take into account the social, environmental and ethical consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organisation for which I work".
Some schools have added a sentence in the convocation program, and a few words during the ceremony. Others have worn ribbons to convocation to show their support. The details for Schulich will follow.
Participation is completely voluntary and an entirely personal decision. We are trying to determine how many people would want to take the pledge. As such, if you are interested in taking the pledge at convocation (regardless of when you actually graduate), please indicate this by signing your name and e-mail address. We want to get an idea of how many people are interested. Thanks for your time and support.
The graduating class of 2003 of the School of Nursing- S.I. would like to add to our school catalog the Cap as part of the official graduation uniform to be owrkn for graduation cermonies only.
27. Stop requiring swim class for graduation at Burrell High School
A student attending Burrell High School, in Lower Burrell, PA, is required to attend and pass four semesters of "Swimming" for graduation. The class is designed to teach students several swimming techniques, strokes, and styles, as well as touch on survival information. The class presents this information well, but most students either already have this knowledge, or do not wish to learn to swim; as they would have taken it upon themselves to do it. Furthermore, the same material is presented over and over-again in each class, taken once per-year, and the final exam required to pass is nothing more than swimming lengths for an entire class, 24 for seniors. It is my personal opinion that this class should become an elective, and not a requirement for graduation; or at minimum, lower the requirement down to a single semester.
28. Give Caledonia back it's Graduation Ceremonies
Get Caledonia it's grad back by signing this online petition.
29. Separate Graduation for grade 12 and 11 at St. Peter CHS
This petition is to grant the students of grade 12 and 11 at St. Peter CHS a separate graduation.