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SI Seniors Plan Protest To Let Banned Student Walk

201106_capandgown.jpg Another day, another senior banned from their graduation. Yesterday we had the Rockaway water-balloon tossers and today we've got Staten Island's Danielle Coates, a senior at Curtis High School with a 90 GPA who has been barred from attending her graduation. Why? Well, it came to light that paperwork she had submitted for her prom date was forged. One problem though: She and her date insist she wasn't the one doing the forging. Naturally, a Facebook group and hashtag are already calling out to #LetDaniWalk and a protest is planned for Friday's ceremony.

The issue is that Coates's date for the prom was not allowed to attend due to poor attendance. So instead he reportedly forged paperwork saying he went to another school which Coates submitted unknowingly, she says. "I was completely clueless when they brought me out of class just to tell me I was barred from graduation," she told the Advance.

Though Coates says her date even admitted to forging the papers to school staff, the administrators aren't buying it. Principal Dr. Aurelia Curtis says that it is Coates's handwriting on the paperwork, and further her date wouldn't have had access to prom permission slips as he wasn't eligible. "When I saw the extent to which they went to circumvent school rules, and to forge documents, I barred her from walking at graduation," she said.

And so Danielle and her friends are planning to protest outside of the graduation on Friday at 4 p.m., with more than 220 people already saying they'll be attending. Hey, something similar kinda worked for Donna Martin—but she was drunk at prom, not forging documents...


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Comments [rss]

  • Wait, prom-date authentication is a factor in ... well, anything?!

    What a f*cked-up school system...

  • Does she really expect people to believe that she didn't know her date wrote that he went to a different school on paperwork she herself turned in? Or that her principal is lying about who's handwriting it is? These kids are dumber than they appear.

  • schmeep

    220 people joining a facebook page is news?  Hmm.

  • BottomlessChips

    Haha great video.

    90 GPA...AP classes and HS GPAs have gotten out of control.

  • eflash

    haha, i was about to comment asking what the hell a 90 GPA is

  • PhotoR

    As far as I know, most public elementary, middle and high schools use the 0-100 GPA scale, and private schools and colleges use the 0-4 GPA scale... I'll let you decide which makes more sense, seeing as usually papers and tests are graded from 0-100.

  • eld0

    A lot of schools, especially in the 5 boroughs, calculate their GPA out of 100.

  • jaycjay

    Not just the five boroughs; plenty of high schools across the US calculate their grades that way. But they don't refer to that number as a GPA.

    Note that the linked article has a screenshot from the protesting Facebook page, where the wording (from a student at the school) is that she has "a 90 average", not "a 90 GPA".

  • Hm, news to me.  "Average" and "GPA" were synonymous come report card day in my high school.

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