JFF: Question About 8Th Grade "graduation"...or Lack Thereof

Eight grade there was a breakfast type of a celebration. Not a graduation. I am with you feline stroller! What really makes me crazy is caps and gowns in K. High school and college deserve caps and gowns. They worked hard
And earned the right to wear it. In today's world everyone has to do everything early in the game. By the time the big day comes whether it be graduation, father daughter dances (those were always for when girl,is older) it does not mean a thing. You know what I mean.

The only graduations I have ever heard of around here are preschool and high school, and rarely kindergarten. We did have 8th grade school dances as a way of sending off to high school, but that was about it.

Nope not here. The only graduation is when you actually graduate from High School.

In elementary school, the final day is lots of cleaning up and packing up things from their desks, playing games and playing on the playground.

At the middle school level they complete finals and do an awards event. Mostly academic awards and some of the team sports recognition.. The parents are not even really informed.. it mostly for the students.
They do a lot of cheering.. signing yearbooks.. etc.

I have never been in favor of ANY graduations before High School.

To me, HS was the minimum...and college was the BIG celebration!

And then...from there...other graduations would (will and do) unfold.

Maybe I am awful...but truly, we celebrate HS graduations (I have twins graduating on Saturday)...but it is not their 'terminal' degree. I save the BIG fuss for college.

***do I sound a snob???***

No, our district does not.

At the end of elementary school our school has an informal cake & punch reception at the end of one school day for the 6th graders. That's a cute way to say goodbye to the kids moving on to the Jr. High.

I've read about schools making it a big event, parents having to shell out money for a cap & gown, they send out announcements, people asking what kind of gift to send for an 8th grade graduation, etc. I honestly don't get making it into a huge, formal, expensive deal.

I understand that for some kids there is a real struggle getting to this point or they had some major life obstacle to overcome. For my kids, finishing 8th grade is simply an expectation, not an accomplishment.

Many years ago when people crossed the country in covered wagons there were only the kindergarten (at some schools) a junior high and then the senior high school graduation.

Now days people want to celebrate everything and the meaning does not have the same as before. Everybody has to have the same thing. Well in life it is not equal and fair. Besides shelling out tons of money before a kid gets out of school has gotten out of hand.

It's nice to celebrate an end to your first nine years of schooling and then on to the high school where you hope they figure out what they would like to do and go for it and graduate unencumbered (with kids).

I will get off my soapbox now. Have a great weekend to all.

the other S.

oh, heavens, yes. EVERYTHING gets celebrated to the nth degree.
:/ khairete
S.

5th, 8th, and 12th, in my district, a large public middle income district.

:)

Our schools have preschool graduation, kindergarten ceremony, 5th grade graduation, 8th grade graduation, 12th grade graduation. I hate it. I'm all for only having 12th grade graduation and be done with it. (I didn't want to go to my high school graduation - it seemed like a waste of time - but my mother made me). However, I'm not a fan of ceremonies.

Our schools do a promotion ceremony for the kindergarteners, 5th graders and 8th graders.

We went to our son's 8th grade ceremony. It. Was. Torture. Nearly 3 hours of watching kids get certificates and awards while sitting on wooden bleachers. For finishing middle school. Ugh.

Not here and I live in one if the highest rated districts in the country.

There is a "celebration" for 5th graders moving to middle school which is 6th-8th grade.

At 8th grade, at least for us, there was no graduation or celebration, children just moved to high school which in our area is grade 9-10. Senior high school are grades 11-12.

No they don't. There is a kindergarten one and then high school.

Actually, I prefer that :)

we have 8th grade awards night. they get any sports awards and the certificate saying they are promoted to 9th grade.

ITA with Felinestroller W! High school graduation should be the earliest and college is really the big deal.

However, there are graduations now for just about everything: preschool, kindergarten, elementary to junior high, junior high to high school. It's silly. I go to them and cheer on my kids, but really, there is no accomplishment there.

Here they do. They have promotion ceremonies for Pre-k, K, 5th, and 8th before graduation in 12th.

We live in one of the highest rated counties in Maryland and I'm fairly confident the other counties do the same thing.

I like it. I think it is a big deal to change schools and move up in the world, plus a lot of kids work very hard to get through middle school. I think it's great to spend an hour or so acknowledging their successes.

ETA: When I finished 8th grade in Massachusetts we had a promotion ceremony as well. I lived on Hanscom AFB, but I know Bedford did one as well since they integrated us together before the end of the year.

Not a "graduation" as that term gets saved for, frankly, the real ones -- high school and college. There is a year-end awards ceremony during the school day but that's done for seventh grade as well (middle school here is seventh and eighth grades). I'm sure much will be said at the eighth grade ceremony about how they're moving on to high school but it's just not looked on as "graduation" at our school or, I think, in most schools in our public school system.

Do you mean "graduation" in the sense they have robes, traditional "mortarboard" hats, and walk to get their certificates? Or an event that is in the evening or otherwise outside the school day? We've had events where kids went up to get certificates for various things, but none of the robe and hat stuff, and always during the school day.

I think these mid level graduations are ridiculous. Honestly, if children were quitting school at these benchmarks as they did in the 20s and 30s, then it would make sense. But we celebrate every danged poop and fart kids make any more. Besides participation ribbons for sports (which I HATE), our school does caps and gowns in kindergarten for criminy! They have 5th grade graduation, 8th grade graduation, and last year they even did an honors roll ceremony EVERY QUARTER! They changed it this year because I think parents must have complained that they were having to take off work every 90 days to go to a ceremony. The bottom line is these kids are moving up one way or another - it's a participation ribbon, really. It's not a milestone that's optional - it's one every kid goes through. It really takes away the celebration of achievement a graduation ceremony is supposed to recognize. I think kids don't get how awesome finishing high school is because they've been celebrated all along the way. It's just another day.

There was a promotion for each. In 5th grade, they sang a song, they got a handshake from the principal and I forget what else. But it was a promotion, not a graduation with a cap and gown. In 8th, it was also a promotion night and they dressed up and the school gave out awards for some of the kids (like best athlete, most improved) etc. When I was in 7th going to 8th (we were in the HS building), we had a similar low-key bon voyage.

The district I worked in during the 90s had 5th and 8th grade graduations, because, sadly, that could end up being many of the students only graduation (seriously underpriveleged, low socioeconomic, high risk for dropout).

I think ceremonies for moving to the next grade is okay for younger kids. Then it's sort of childish. I do agree that something special can be done when they leave one school and go to another for a higher grade but that's sort of a thing to help them say goodbye and deal with the feelings they'll have for not going to that previous school again.

I didn't mind going from elementary school to junior high because I didn't know what it would be like. When we left junior high and I thought about how I'd likely never set foot in that school again or sit in a band chair to play my instrument or sit by my best friend in that lunch room, then it was harder. A party or something to get us focused on moving forward and growing up would have been nice.

As for caps and gowns....pre-K and maybe kindergarten. But not any higher. They're too big.

My daughter's grade school had an 8th grade graduation, but they didn't have junior high. There was no graduation from 5th grade either.

Our district does have 8th Grade Graduation. The kids wear robes, but the ceremony is less than an hour. Then the kids have a dance that the adults are not allowed to attend except for chaperones.

The 5th Graders have DARE graduation, which is 3 hours of torture. No kinder grad. Of course there is High School Grad, but I've yet to attend one of those. Next year!

Our district doesn't really do anything special either for 8th grade. In 2nd grade there is a Celebration, and in 5th grade, there is a Farewell, which is just a special version of the Field Day that the 3rd and 4th grade have. There are some special end-of-year events the kids but no graduation, per se. I went to Catholic school and graduation was a big deal because we were all moving on to different schools.

Yep. 5th grade grad, then 8th grade grad. They're all different schools, so I guess it's a big deal to go from 8th grade to high school. Our school district makes a lot of fuss during any 'transition' year (5th to 6th, then 8th to 9th). There are school visits, "Move-up" day, another visit, meeting with HS counselors, etc, all during the 8th grade school year. Our kids are VERY familiar with the high school by the time they actually start there. So 8th grade graduation is a really big deal.

They have a "promotion" ceremony and party/school dance.
Something similar happened in 5th grade though on a smaller scale.
The only graduation ceremony here in our district is at the high school level.

Most schools in Chicago are K-8 and then HS. There is 8th grade graduation. My parents had it, I did as did my nieces and nephews. In my area, no graduation or anything for 5th but yes for 8th grade and then HS.

I've lived all over, so some schools I went to did stuff like that for those grades; others did not. When in 5th grade, we didn't have a graduation, but had an end of the year program for all students. Each class sang a song, each teacher spoke, and they handed out some awards. Parents were invited and I think it lasted an hour or so. Different state in 8th grade, but pretty much the same thing, just without the songs. In the district where I graduated high school, they did Kindergarten and 12th grade graduations. For middle and high school, they would have an evening awards ceremony at the end of the year, but only students getting an award and their parents were invited.

Yes, our daughters Jr. High did a graduation from 8th grade (public school). But my son is going from 6th to 7th and his charter school didn't do a graduation which surprised me. Middle school is through 6th here.

Morning
our school, which is a Catholic School does an 8th grade graduation, in fact, it's this am (for the mass) and then later on for the diploma celebration. I think after 9 grueling years (this includes Kinder) the kids ought to have some type of celebration. Also, it marks an end to an era in which the kids are going to elementary school.. sigh.............. wow, has it ever flown by so quickly...

Personally I think it is kind of stupid that they do 5th and 8th around here. When I was in school it would have seemed even sillier since the freshmen were in the Jr. High as well. I would not worry about it either way to be honest.