It's just a day.

I've heard that phrase, so many times in the last two days, that I never want to hear it again.  I will try to make this post, somewhat short.  And by short,  you know I'll ramble on and on, right?  Well here goes my story, well, my daughter's story on why she didn't get to walk with her graduating class, but will get her diploma at the same time as all her other classmates.


Let me give you a bit of a back story as to why D had to work so hard this year, to graduate from high school.


When D was in 9th grade, the first year of HS here, she decided to go to the school that her paternal Great-Grandfather went to, we live in a place were she had 4 different HS's to pick from.  And for the next two years, she started failing classes for the first time ever.  Part of it was out of pure laziness, over doing homework, some of it was truly not understanding her work, and not getting the help she needed, 'my fault', and she just didn't really fit in there and hated being at a school where no one talked to her.  So, for her junior year, she did online schooling and did great. She didn't make up any credits, but she didn't fail any classes and she was understanding the work.  However, she missed the school setting, but didn't want to go back to her former school.


So then we found 'heaven' in a high school.  The same high school that I went too, that her dad, aunt, grandparents all graduated from.  From the second we met with the counselor there, we knew this was the place she was meant to graduate from.  We mapped out the whole years course plan for her, so that she would not only take all of her required senior classes, but that she could, if she worked hard, make up those  classes that she needed to graduate.  YAY! 


So for this entire year, that girl has busted her butt, to get things done.  She even broke up with her boyfriend of two years, because she felt he was a distraction and an anchor, to her future achievements.  Fast forward a wonderful school year, until about 6 weeks ago, when D sets a meeting up with her counselor to make sure everything is really going to happen.  This is when the counselor informs her that she has an entire elective credit to make up, that she'd previously overlooked, for the last 8 months.  So with six weeks left in school, she started on a class, at least they gave her the easiest class available.  However, while struggling to get that online class done, she started slacking off a bit in the rest of her classes.  All of her teachers understood, and could see how stressed she was now getting about graduation getting closer, and most of her teachers, help her out.  MOST of her teachers, there was one teacher, who not only did help her, but in fact, put her farther in the whole.  He was a week behind on grading her assessments, which are basically comparing two or more stories, however the teacher wants you too.  Let me also say, this teacher should be teaching a higher level of education.  I could barely understand his instructions of what he wanted.  Anyways, she can redo these assessments as many times as possible to get a good grade one them.  Well that's impossible to do if you don't know if you've even failed it or not.  So he finally catches up on her work, with a week left of school.  Meanwhile, she finished and passed all of her other classes, and now it's just this one.  So she hands in her assessments, and her teacher spends the next two days, sick at home, not grading her papers, not answering her emails, which at this point, were becoming stern, and frequent.  It's now the last Wednesday of school, and graduation is on Sunday, and her teacher is finally back and able to grade her things.  Unfortunately, two of the assessments she wrote were past the deadline, for seniors.  "Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you're a senior", she's in a junior class.  


So needless to say, my sweet little daughter, who worked her tail off this year, couldn't and wasn't allowed to make up any work in that class, due to new policy, and was four percent away from passing his class.


I felt this was grossly unfair, and went down on Friday to talk to, well whoever I had to talk to, to make sure that my daughter was going to walk on Sunday.  And I wish I could say that I was able to fight tooth and nail to get her there, but, there was nothing the principal could do, and the teacher I needed to talk to, of course had to leave immediately after school.  


So yesterday, I accompanied my daughter, to her graduation ceremony, so that she could see her fellow classmen walk.  She even brought her cap and gown, so that she could take pictures with her friends.

D and her Friend T.  Those are tears of both, joy for him and sadness for her, in her eyes.

And when she get's her diploma, I'm going to take a picture of her to photoshop into this one.

Well that's my ramble for the day.  I wish that we could see the graduation ceremony walk as, 'just a day' and yes we know that it's the diploma that really matters, and the hard work that she put forth to get it.  But, we can't help but feel a bit robbed out of an experience, that we wanted and worked for.  And that it was never viewed as, 'just a day', to us.


See ya tomorrow kids.