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When the Chickens Come Home to Roost

Graduation is coming up. You would think this was a happy time of
year, but for teachers and administrators it is one of the most
stressful.

The stress can be summed up in one word. Parents.

Parents who believe that little Johnny should be graduating even
though he hasn't passed all of his required classes. Parents who
believe that their child is being slighted because a teacher gave
him/her a bad grade. The list goes on...

Today it's Honor Cords. Yes, those flimsy little cords awarded to
members of the Honor Society in good standing. This year, some people
aren't getting one and the parental units are up in arms.

You see, in the past, Honor Society paid for cords for everyone who
had a 3.5 or above GPA. No one bothered to check to see if they were
an Honor Society member or had even participated. The students paid
money once a year and that was it. To say that the group was dying was
an understatement. The few who attended meetings could fit in a
closet. No students led anything, few showed up to participate in any
activity.

Last summer, the advisor went to a "leadership camp" for advisors. It
was suggested that a point system would help encourage students to
participate. Especially, if they knew that no "yellow cord" would be
coming forth. Now, the advisor has been pretty lenient about how many
points would be acceptable... suffice to say that if said student
participated in a single function, they were ok'ed. These are Seniors,
Honor Society members are usually involved in numerous activities and
it's a new system. Really the advisor doesn't want to be a hard ass
about this, but does want membership to mean something other than
spare changed collected from the car ashtray.

The problem comes in when the parents find out that little
Johnny/Suzie hasn't attended a single event or meeting despite
numerous reminders, announcements, etc. and won't be getting that
"yellow cord". It's apparently a "punishment" for not participating -
here all along, I thought it was choice, but since I'm not a parent of
a teenagers, what do I know? Perhaps the advisor should have sent
notes home to Mommy and Daddy so that they can remind little
Johnny/Suzie to be sure to participate, but it's an unpaid position
and the advisor actually has a life.

So, how will it turn out? The advisor already checked to make sure
that there were extra cords because the administration is sure to cave
in... just like the 15 or so other times something like this has come
up before.

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