Anyone else disappointed about graduation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have they started the process of selecting venues for 2025 graduation? How can we advocate for home field or another place within MoCo?

There are no other places in MoCo besides home field.

I tell you what you should do this year:
1. Find out when your child's high school graduation is this year
2. At the time of this year's graduation, drive down to the high school. Unfortunately, you won't be able to practice what parking would be like on graduation day if the event were held at the school.
3. Starting at the time of graduation, sit in the bleacher for 2 hours
4. Invite grandparents to join you. Have them sit in the bleachers with you for those two hours
5. Or maybe skip that part since you may not get enough tickets to invite grandparents
6. If it rains during that time, take a guess as to when the make up graduation would be and repeat the same test

After doing this, you can really make the informed decision of whether you want to vote to have next year's graduation on home field or not.

You can stare at an ocean/be at a beach with a hat on for longer than 2 hours when the temps are high, but you can't sit to watch your precious gem for two hours? WEAR a HAT. Bring a towel for the bleacher seat. Elderly and those needing shaded areas can be accommodated inside in the school's auditorium, cafeteria. Or leave your elderly at home on your couch and go get them before you go out for a celebratory meal if you go out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised they weren’t using either Montgomery college or strathmore. Isn’t strsthmore basically broke? No one is going to see the BSO at 9 am on a Wednesday morning so it seems like they should rent it out for a good price.

Seems like there should be options closer than UMBC but I guess not. The 9 am on a Wednesday is as much of a bummer as the location—if it were afternoon or a Friday maybe it would be easier to make it feel celebratory or for siblings to attend. Anyway, it’s all a minor disappointment but not really a big deal.

Strathmore doesn't have enough capacity, fewer than 2000 seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have they started the process of selecting venues for 2025 graduation? How can we advocate for home field or another place within MoCo?

There are no other places in MoCo besides home field.

I tell you what you should do this year:
1. Find out when your child's high school graduation is this year
2. At the time of this year's graduation, drive down to the high school. Unfortunately, you won't be able to practice what parking would be like on graduation day if the event were held at the school.
3. Starting at the time of graduation, sit in the bleacher for 2 hours
4. Invite grandparents to join you. Have them sit in the bleachers with you for those two hours
5. Or maybe skip that part since you may not get enough tickets to invite grandparents
6. If it rains during that time, take a guess as to when the make up graduation would be and repeat the same test

After doing this, you can really make the informed decision of whether you want to vote to have next year's graduation on home field or not.

You can stare at an ocean/be at a beach with a hat on for longer than 2 hours when the temps are high, but you can't sit to watch your precious gem for two hours? WEAR a HAT. Bring a towel for the bleacher seat. Elderly and those needing shaded areas can be accommodated inside in the school's auditorium, cafeteria. Or leave your elderly at home on your couch and go get them before you go out for a celebratory meal if you go out.

Another way of saying that is, "I think you should have my priorities, not your priorities."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised they weren’t using either Montgomery college or strathmore. Isn’t strsthmore basically broke? No one is going to see the BSO at 9 am on a Wednesday morning so it seems like they should rent it out for a good price.

Seems like there should be options closer than UMBC but I guess not. The 9 am on a Wednesday is as much of a bummer as the location—if it were afternoon or a Friday maybe it would be easier to make it feel celebratory or for siblings to attend. Anyway, it’s all a minor disappointment but not really a big deal.

I doubt MC would ever be used. As for Strathmore, I wouldn't assume it's broke, the problem I think a lot of parents and others would have with Strathmore is because it has a much lower capacity than DAR, MSM, or UMBC.

To approximately count the capacity for the four of them.

DAR - 3,702
UMBC - 4,654
MSM - About 4,000
Strathmore - 1,976.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised they weren’t using either Montgomery college or strathmore. Isn’t strsthmore basically broke? No one is going to see the BSO at 9 am on a Wednesday morning so it seems like they should rent it out for a good price.

Seems like there should be options closer than UMBC but I guess not. The 9 am on a Wednesday is as much of a bummer as the location—if it were afternoon or a Friday maybe it would be easier to make it feel celebratory or for siblings to attend. Anyway, it’s all a minor disappointment but not really a big deal.

I doubt MC would ever be used. As for Strathmore, I wouldn't assume it's broke, the problem I think a lot of parents and others would have with Strathmore is because it has a much lower capacity than DAR, MSM, or UMBC.

To approximately count the capacity for the four of them.

DAR - 3,702
UMBC - 4,654
MSM - About 4,000
Strathmore - 1,976.

The more you think about it, Strathmore has a very less capacity and can't hold much space for about half of the MCPS high schools from what I can probably tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big schools in MCPS used to graduate at UMD, which is much better than doing it at UMBC. But alas, UMBC is cheaper and further than UMD, so it won out.

UMD deliberately priced themselves out of contention. They didn't want to deal with it any more.

Source? I would think there was an RFP and some combo of tech and pricing resulted in selections.
They still hold a fair number of PG County graduations at UMD Xfinity, thought many appear to now instead be at the Show Place Arena.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised they weren’t using either Montgomery college or strathmore. Isn’t strsthmore basically broke? No one is going to see the BSO at 9 am on a Wednesday morning so it seems like they should rent it out for a good price.

Seems like there should be options closer than UMBC but I guess not. The 9 am on a Wednesday is as much of a bummer as the location—if it were afternoon or a Friday maybe it would be easier to make it feel celebratory or for siblings to attend. Anyway, it’s all a minor disappointment but not really a big deal.

I doubt MC would ever be used. As for Strathmore, I wouldn't assume it's broke, the problem I think a lot of parents and others would have with Strathmore is because it has a much lower capacity than DAR, MSM, or UMBC.

To approximately count the capacity for the four of them.

DAR - 3,702
UMBC - 4,654
MSM - About 4,000
Strathmore - 1,976.

The more you think about it, Strathmore has a very less capacity and can't hold much space for about half of the MCPS high schools from what I can probably tell.

Alright, don't get me wrong, Strathmore is beautiful as heck, I think it looks better than DAR in my opinion, but for such a small capacity, there's only a few high schools that have a small population to have the graduation there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised they weren’t using either Montgomery college or strathmore. Isn’t strsthmore basically broke? No one is going to see the BSO at 9 am on a Wednesday morning so it seems like they should rent it out for a good price.

Seems like there should be options closer than UMBC but I guess not. The 9 am on a Wednesday is as much of a bummer as the location—if it were afternoon or a Friday maybe it would be easier to make it feel celebratory or for siblings to attend. Anyway, it’s all a minor disappointment but not really a big deal.

I doubt MC would ever be used. As for Strathmore, I wouldn't assume it's broke, the problem I think a lot of parents and others would have with Strathmore is because it has a much lower capacity than DAR, MSM, or UMBC.

To approximately count the capacity for the four of them.

DAR - 3,702
UMBC - 4,654
MSM - About 4,000
Strathmore - 1,976.

The more you think about it, Strathmore has a very less capacity and can't hold much space for about half of the MCPS high schools from what I can probably tell.

Alright, don't get me wrong, Strathmore is beautiful as heck, I think it looks better than DAR in my opinion, but for such a small capacity, there's only a few high schools that have a small population to have the graduation there.

Agreed with ya, UMBC or MSM are the weaker two in terms of an interior look.

[Anonymous]

Just have to go to a small private school with a chapel on premises. Or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was surprised they weren’t using either Montgomery college or strathmore. Isn’t strsthmore basically broke? No one is going to see the BSO at 9 am on a Wednesday morning so it seems like they should rent it out for a good price.

Seems like there should be options closer than UMBC but I guess not. The 9 am on a Wednesday is as much of a bummer as the location—if it were afternoon or a Friday maybe it would be easier to make it feel celebratory or for siblings to attend. Anyway, it’s all a minor disappointment but not really a big deal.

I doubt MC would ever be used. As for Strathmore, I wouldn't assume it's broke, the problem I think a lot of parents and others would have with Strathmore is because it has a much lower capacity than DAR, MSM, or UMBC.

To approximately count the capacity for the four of them.

DAR - 3,702
UMBC - 4,654
MSM - About 4,000
Strathmore - 1,976.

The more you think about it, Strathmore has a very less capacity and can't hold much space for about half of the MCPS high schools from what I can probably tell.

Alright, don't get me wrong, Strathmore is beautiful as heck, I think it looks better than DAR in my opinion, but for such a small capacity, there's only a few high schools that have a small population to have the graduation there.

Agreed with ya, UMBC or MSM are the weaker two in terms of an interior look.

Obviously, because they're literally just basketball arenas compared to the other two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perfectly fine with wherever the graduation place is, as long as the name announcers aren't very loud when they say the names of the graduates (I'm fine if they're a bit loud, but not all the way piercing loud)

Well, it depends on how they say the names, they're either really calm, very quiet, or very loud. No in-between.

Why does the loudness of the name announcer matter? They just call out the names of the graduates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have they started the process of selecting venues for 2025 graduation? How can we advocate for home field or another place within MoCo?

There are no other places in MoCo besides home field.

I tell you what you should do this year:
1. Find out when your child's high school graduation is this year
2. At the time of this year's graduation, drive down to the high school. Unfortunately, you won't be able to practice what parking would be like on graduation day if the event were held at the school.
3. Starting at the time of graduation, sit in the bleacher for 2 hours
4. Invite grandparents to join you. Have them sit in the bleachers with you for those two hours
5. Or maybe skip that part since you may not get enough tickets to invite grandparents
6. If it rains during that time, take a guess as to when the make up graduation would be and repeat the same test

After doing this, you can really make the informed decision of whether you want to vote to have next year's graduation on home field or not.

Every single thing you cite is something my whole family did in the 1980s. It was fine. Graduation tickets were limited, it was held at school or nearby, and everyone survived.

Most elderly would be fine watching the ceremony streamed from a more comfortable location anyhow, and these days we have the technology to stream each and every high school graduation. There is no need to drag your 20 closest relatives and friends there.

Much better than trying to figure out how to get everyone to a far away (hour or so) drive or have to rent a giant SUV to fit all the elderly relatives in to make the trek to a giant stadium, where they will have issues getting to anyhow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have they started the process of selecting venues for 2025 graduation? How can we advocate for home field or another place within MoCo?

There are no other places in MoCo besides home field.

I tell you what you should do this year:
1. Find out when your child's high school graduation is this year
2. At the time of this year's graduation, drive down to the high school. Unfortunately, you won't be able to practice what parking would be like on graduation day if the event were held at the school.
3. Starting at the time of graduation, sit in the bleacher for 2 hours
4. Invite grandparents to join you. Have them sit in the bleachers with you for those two hours
5. Or maybe skip that part since you may not get enough tickets to invite grandparents
6. If it rains during that time, take a guess as to when the make up graduation would be and repeat the same test

After doing this, you can really make the informed decision of whether you want to vote to have next year's graduation on home field or not.

Every single thing you cite is something my whole family did in the 1980s. It was fine. Graduation tickets were limited, it was held at school or nearby, and everyone survived.

Most elderly would be fine watching the ceremony streamed from a more comfortable location anyhow, and these days we have the technology to stream each and every high school graduation. There is no need to drag your 20 closest relatives and friends there.

Much better than trying to figure out how to get everyone to a far away (hour or so) drive or have to rent a giant SUV to fit all the elderly relatives in to make the trek to a giant stadium, where they will have issues getting to anyhow.

So true! Most people are going to be bored by 95% of the ceremony.

[Anonymous]

Ghettomore……

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is 2 hours out of your life and you don’t want to be bothered? This is a milestone event and there will never be a do over.

there will be a college graduation, and some kids just hate it. MY DD friend skip graduation because she just didn't care.. Her parents were heartbroken, but there not much that can be done.