A mother in Missouri wants to see the homecoming events at her daughter’s high school canceled after she learned about a prank that was intended to happen to her daughter. A rumor surfaced that students planned to go out of their way to humiliate her daughter, who has ADHD and other social issues. The school has not canceled homecoming.
Usually, homecoming is all about one of two things. The most important thing is either the outcome of the homecoming football game, or, it is all about the dresses. Unfortunately, this year some students in Pacific High School, which is located in Pacific, Missouri, decided that the best part of homecoming was the opportunity to publicly humiliate a fellow student who has special needs.
Parents Tonya and Rickie Tanner have a fifteen year old daughter who attends Pacific High School. Their daughter, who has ADHD and “several social disorders” is doing well, academically speaking. However, she has had difficulty socially. She doesn’t hang around with a group of friends, and doesn’t have even one friend that she can count on to spend time with. Her best friend has become a duck that lives on the family’s farm.
One of the biggest homecoming events at Pacific High School is the homecoming parade. The Tanner’s daughter was, unexpectedly, elected to the homecoming court, and therefore, would be participating in the parade. The Tanners learned of a rumor that indicated that students elected their daughter specifically to humiliate her during the parade. The students were going to quack and throw eggs at her.
The parents have taken to Facebook to deal with this problem. Rickie Tanner says he has gotten “overwhelming support” from both friends and strangers after writing about this situation on Facebook. He thinks that the superintendent of the school district started an investigation into the rumors as a result of it being talked about on Facebook.
Tonya Tanner wants to see all homecoming activities cancelled this year. It is understandable for a mother to want to protect her daughter from being humiliated by her peers. At this time, the school has not made plans to cancel homecoming. The Tanners are waiting to see how the school handles the situation.
Superintendent Randy George had this to say:
“Our homecoming activities are very important to our student body, however, it will not outweigh our concern for that individual student.”
Sadly, this is not the first news article I have read this year that involves a student being elected to homecoming court because several other students wanted to use the situation as a way to humiliate the student. This is the first one that involved a rumor about throwing eggs at a student.
Image by the_girl on Flickr