Even when the audience is asked BEFORE diplomas are handed out to show restraint (and politely applaud a graduate if they choose to) it turns into a circus.

Friend and family SCREAM the graduate’s name (not unlike if he had been kidnapped and presumed dead for 5 years and suddenly reappeared) and juniors do the same thing. Of course it’s not enough for a parent to take a photo of the handshake from your auditorium seat. A member of the family must run up to the stage itself and get a close up!

I refuse to go to them anymore.

I work at a school where the administration enforces no rules. Guess how that’s going?
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Of course that won’t work. The point is that extreme positions, on any side of any issue, are likely to cause more problems than they solve. The answer, as in pretty much all aspects, is balance. Teach the kids to follow appropriate rules, rules that prevent chaos and encourage kids to demonstrate proper manners and consideration for others. Don’t inundate them who countless unnecessary rules that do nothing but stifle their independence and their ability to come to their own conclusions about right and wrong. Doing so will either create someone incapable of true free thought or someone who rebels against any attempt to place rules or limitations on them.

Their school, their rules, whether they made them up on the spot or not. Don’t like it, go somewhere else. I like that you usually do football stories, but the more you pontificate, the less likely I am to return. Freedom of choice.
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Well, in that case, goodbye, good luck, and don’t let the door hit you in the backside on your way out. First of all, it’s not THEIR school. It’s the community’s school, paid for with local tax revenue. Principals are hired (that makes them a community servant) to oversee the operation of the school so as to ensure that it provides the best possible learning environment for the kids. Trying to rob kids of their individual identities or train them to simply repeat back whatever beliefs their teachers want to hear is not a good learning environment.

It’s precisely b/c there’s a potential penalty attached that makes the act of doing them so interesting to observers. The willingness to risk paying that price is what separates folk like this kid from the lemmings

“We thought he was ‘Hotdogging’. Or suffering a Grand Mal Seizure. We were worried he might put the diploma in his mouth and choke on it. Honorary degrees for special needs students are thicker and larger than normal.”.

I actually think it was hilarious that he had to clean the gym afterwards, lol. I’ve done some messed up stuff in H.S. but it never got that bad.

Plus, he got his diploma after all. It’s not like they held it.

If this kid wanted so much attention, he would have become Valedictorion. They give entire speeches.

I don’t see you making a big stink about the commissioner’s power trip over guys 3-4 years older than this high school student getting a penalty/fine for celebrating their first NFL touchdown/sack/whatever.