GA Officials Apologetic After Students Excluded From Grad Ceremony

MARIETTA, GA — A group of Cobb County students considered to be special needs were reportedly required to sit in the hallway during their commencement ceremony last month, and now the school district is apologizing.

The Cobb County School District was under fire recently when a group of Sprayberry High School students were excluded from their May 25 graduation ceremony, per People and Fox 5 Atlanta. The ceremony was held at Kennesaw State University.

When their name was called, the students walked across the stage from a hallway before returning to the hall - where they missed the remainder of the ceremony, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.

“They call the special needs students one by one [to] walk across the stage and exit out a left hallway, to exit outside behind the building. And by the time they were done, they were just starting the general ed kids commencement ceremony as far as issuing diplomas. I was very upset…I'm like, ‘Why did we even come,'" Linda Ramirez, the mother of one of the students, told People in a Friday interview.

“Everybody that had a special needs child got up to go collect their kids, and during this, the commencement ceremony is in full, it's happening. So our kids missed it all. They didn't get the turn of the tassel. They didn't get to see the opening speeches, and they didn't get that big walkout.”

The matter arose at a recent Cobb County School board meeting, where outrage reportedly sparked.

Cobb County school officials issued a statement to People. It reads in part:

“Every year we graduate approximately 8,000 students and every special needs parent ... chooses how their child is celebrated. Some Cobb families choose a full graduation ceremony, some choose to protect their child from noise, stimuli or attention in a variety of ways. ... This year, although initial reports indicated those choices were offered, we discovered they were not offered to one student at Sprayberry High School. Our expectation, and the parent's, was not fully met. As a result, [Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale] apologized to the student and family in last night’s [June 13] board meeting.”

Read more via People and Fox 5 Atlanta.