After Home Schooling, Pomp and Traditional Circumstances

Tamar Lewin:

The 26 young men and women, seated in alphabetical order, were nearly silent as they waited for their high school graduation to start. No giggles. No buzz. No camaraderie. And no wonder: they had met just once before, at the rehearsal two weeks earlier where they got their caps and gowns.

They had come on this muggy June evening to the Miami Zoo, past the flamingos and the tiger, for an hourlong ceremony that Gloria Rodriguez, the organizer, proudly called "the very first South Florida home-school graduation ever created."

Ms. Rodriguez's "home-school class of 2011" had no prom, no yearbook, no valedictorian. Still, for these students who had sidestepped a traditional education -- and especially for their parents -- there was "Pomp and Circumstance" and shiny turquoise tassels to shift from one side of a cap to the other.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 21, 2011 1:04 AM
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