How Crazy Was the District 105 Graduation: Your Take

Updated with comments from Board President David Herndon

Graduations are meant to be a time of great celebration—but according to the District 105 School Board, the enthusiasm ran too high at Gurrie Middle School’s May 29 commencement.

The board discussed at last week’s meeting how they could make next year’s graduation a little more civilized, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Now, I wasn’t at the Gurrie eighth-grade graduation (though my mom is an alumna, class of 1960-something), so I am incredibly curious: How nuts was it?

It sounds like it was total chaos, from what the Tribune reported: Hooting parents, children running wild, crowds massing at the exits, ponies dancing on the stage. (That last one isn’t true, but darn if I don’t wish it were.)

Board President David Herndon offered this comment to me on Tuesday afternoon.

"We had a great celebration of the success of our students," he said. "There are just some things that we are reviewing to make the ceremony better."

That doesn't sound so bad—the scenario I imagined after reading the Tribune article reminded me of when I went to see a mid-90s production of The Diary of Anne Frank in a Cleveland theater.

Of all the live events that deserve calm and reverence, I would say a theatrical production of The Diary of Anne Frank ranks pretty high.

But not to this audience.

There were wolf whistles when Anne and Peter kissed for the first time; laughter when the Nazis nearly discovered the Frank family in hiding; and most cringe-worthy of all, a cry of “Oooooh, they’re coming to get you!” when ominous footsteps signaled the Nazi’s final approach. Even though I didn’t know anyone in that audience, I was completely mortified to be in their company.

So let’s use that as our benchmark: Was the behavior at Gurrie’s graduation enthusiastic but appropriate? Or was it as bad as someone laughing at Nazis hunting Anne Frank? My guess is it was somewhere in between.

What, if anything, do you think should be done about the manners at future Gurrie graduation ceremonies?