People spend vast sums on public education, and some of that money’s wasted every time a principal or superintendent denies a valedictorian his or her diploma for saying the word hell in a commencement speech.
Has that ever happened? Yes, at least once, and that’s once too often:
Prague High School is withholding Kaitlin Nootbaar’s diploma until she apologizes for saying the word “hell” in her commencement speech, The Associated Press reported….
The Prague High School superintendent told the AP in a statement Monday that Nootbaar “used language that was inappropriate for a graduation exercise.”
The teen and her family disagree and have refused to apologize.
She’s now received her transcript, but not her diploma. It’s a petty punishment, weak and squeamish. Nootbaar’s original draft read heck and not hell, but that’s a difference too trivial for the punishment (and the bad publicity the district is receiving).
They’ve never heard the word hell before? That’d be surprising, and really a helluva thing, wouldn’t it?
Via WISN.
Posted originally on 8.21.12 at Daily Adams.