Every child looks forward to the last week of school. Seniors anticipate this week more than the rest knowing that soon they will be closing the chapter of childhood and moving on to adulthood. Of course most of us, look back and wish we could go back to those carefree days before mortgages and electric bills, while remembering how anxious we were to “get out of school” ourselves. School administrators look at the last week of school with both joy and anxiety. I started this week off with an honor student in tears because she contracted a nasty case of “senioritis” and failed her senior English class. After much convincing I reminded her that she could make the credit up in summer school (I am principal this year… pray for the children) and sent her on her way with a big hug and a promise that life would go on!
The best word to describe this week is “activities.” As I long for the comfort of my easy chair and the nightly line up of reruns. I know that this week is not only filled with graduation, but yearbook distribution, ice cream socials, cap and gowns, senior barbeque, senior award assemblies, graduation practice, lots of tears, and in our case… the dreaded GRAD NITE!
For the life of me, I can’t imagine any school official in their right mind agreeing to take ten chartered buses of teenagers to Disneyland for the entire night before gradation, but after many years this has now become a “scared cow” at our school which in my opinion is past due for the slaughter house. Now lest you think I’ve become “Scrooged”… every GRAD NITE for the past six years I have been sent to Disney Jail to baby-sit knuckle-heads who thought it was more important to get drunk/high than to walk in the graduation ceremony. (Students who fail they security check are banished to Disneyland Nursery which has been tranformed for the evening into Disney Jail.) This travesty is despite the students signing senior contracts, administrative warnings, and plain ole’ common sense!
You see, the way this works is … every bus has an adult assigned to it, we travel about an hour to Disneyland and join other schools from all over the state, when we arrive the Disney guards search each student (and sponsor) and if caught with contraband (or under the influence) they are sent to “Disney Jail” where school officials are called from a loud speaker to “deal” with their students. We then call parents to make the long drive to pick their “Little Einstein” and remind them that their kid will not be participating in the graduation ceremony the next day. Trust me, it is a joy to be the administrator who breaks this news! Traditionally it entails at least three hours of waiting with some stoned kid wailing all night until their furious parent arrives. Unfortunately, this fury is not focused on the individual who made the stupid decision, but the “heart-less” school official!” “Don’t you know that Aunt Mable flew all the way across the country to see little Johnny graduate”? As you can imagine, this is NOT a fun conversation!
This year we took a different approach; in addition to be searched by Disney security, we hired a private company to search students BEFORE they loaded the busses. I asked to speak to the kids AGAIN at graduation practice. This year, instead of making a joke out of it as in years past by saying “Don’t Send Castleman to Disney Jail” and “Friends Don’t Let Friends Do Stupid Things” this year I was more somber. I asked all those who planned to go to GRAD NITE to stand up. I then asked them to look to their right and left … and told them if history repeats as it has for the previous six years at least two people standing will not participate in the graduation because of something “STUPID” they did at GRAD NITE. And pleaded “Please don’t make me call your parents and tell them that all the plans they have made for twelve years have been shattered because of something “STUPID” their little “KNUCKLEHEAD” did the night before.
As usual, the Senior Awards Ceremony ran overtime… the kids were beginning to arrive and anxiously waiting in the gym. Of course we had accidentally “double-booked” the gym and it was not only filled with almost 600 teenagers, but a bunch of little kids shooting hoops. Finally the searches began and all passed through. We loaded the busses and they left the campus without a single broken down bus as in years past. I drove to Disney checking my phone for messages every 15 minutes… no calls. I managed to work my way through the crowd, through the searching, and arrived at the “holding area” for sponsors… no messages. I commented to a colleague I felt like a Chihuahua on caffeine waiting for the dreaded summons to Disney Jail. I planted myself at the table for a couple hours waiting… nothing! Finally I decided to give up and go play with my favorite group of young teachers. Had we really made it this year without an incident?
About 4:30 a.m. we received a call that a girl was sick at her stomach and had gone to the infirmary. We met her there, called her mother who opted to have her taken to the bus with one of our awesome sponsors since it was close to departure time. As I walked back to my car… I shook my head in disbelief. Was it possible that I had just left Disney with a smile on my face?? This class had actually made it without any GRAD NITE causalities... maybe this truly is the "Happiest Place On Earth." We made it back home with only a couple kids on the wrong bus and I could actually go home a sleep before graduation. OH JOY!!
*Disneyland, Disney, and GRAD NITE are trademarks of Disney Inc.
