Thursdays on the Bench

(Cathy) Today my younger son will celebrate his graduation from junior high school. He is graduating from the same junior high school that I went to! My older son also went there. When my older son started three of my teachers were still there, weird! Just how old were they? When I went to my Junior High Prom it was held at night in the school gym. I remember we had punch and good music and dancing. It was a lot of fun. My older son had the same experience. His prom was held at night in the school gym and they had punch and pizza. So, I wonder what happened this year? My younger son's prom is being held in a convention centre. Many parents asked why as the gym has worked well since the school opened 40 years ago. It is costing more money as they also hired a professional photographer to take a photo of each student receiving their "pretend" certificate. This is the kicker, the "prom" is being held at 3pm until 5:30pm?????? We have received many letters advising to pick up the children no later than 5:45pm! What kind of prom is that? I understand it's junior high school, but this is just silly!


(Sunshine) Your old school is actually right on trend with most of the other elementary schools. As far as I am aware, the majority of elementary schools have their proms at banquet halls and convention centres and they are all during the day and go into the after school hours. That's what happened at our school last year and all of my daughter's friend's schools did the same thing. I remember my prom being during the day as I can remember getting off of the bus and my heal broke (on your shoe?) and it was definitely still day light. I am not quite sure why they do it this way. I suppose that another venue makes it a little bit more special for the kids and it's a little easier for the school because there is so much less to do. If the kids enjoy it, then that is really all that matters. As far as the timing is concerned, ours started earlier last year and finished by the end of the school day and that made for a routine school pick up and drop off day. Because the kids needed to be at school by about 11:00am that gave everyone a chance to get ready and then when we arrived at school there were a lot of parents taking pictures of all of the kids. It was really quite nice and the kids really loved it.


I had no idea that your children went to the same school that you went to when you were a kid. I thought that that kind of thing only happened in movies. That is a really cool thing. Congratulations to your younger son on this big accomplishment. I can't believe that he is already headed for high school next year.