Schools
Glenelg Students May Wear Blue Ribbons at Graduation: HoCo Superintendent
The decision overturns Glenelg High School's move to bar students from paying tribute to the late Grace McComas.
Grace McComas would have graduated this spring from Glenelg High School. But on Easter Sunday in 2012, after being bullied online for months, she took her own life.
Since then, the McComas family advocated for legislation to protect minors from maliciousness on social media; as a result, "Grace's Law" was passed in 2013. Howard County has made efforts to curb bullying, including a series of forums in the coming weeks.
But when former classmates of Grace McComas asked to honor her at Glenelg High's graduation on May 29 by wearing blue ribbons on their gowns, the school system denied the request.
Glenelg principal Karl Schindler said that students who wore ribbons that were blue—Grace's favorite color—on their graduation gowns would "glorify the death of Grace" and be kicked out of the ceremony, according to The Baltimore Sun.
After Grace's death in 2012, Glenelg denied a request to acknowledge the loss of the 15-year-old student with a moment of silence.
"She was hurt so much by that school, and now it seems like they are trying to dismiss her very existence," Christine McComas, Grace's mother, told The Baltimore Sun.
Superintendent Renee Foose reversed the decision about graduation at the Howard County Board of Education's Thursday meeting.
"We recently received a request from several students at Glenelg High School to wear blue ribbons on their robes to honor Grace McComas, a classmate who passed away in 2012," Foose said.
Although only academic honors are allowed to be displayed on students' caps and gowns at graduation per the school system's graduation guidelines, Foose said in response to requests, the administration had made an exception.
"In these situations, the schools work with the families to determine the most appropriate ways to express remembrance of students who have passed," Foose said. "The school has reached out to the McComas family to consider options for remembering Grace such as awarding a posthumous diploma and a scholarship in Grace's name."
She added that the school would allow students to wear blue wristbands during the graduation ceremony. Nothing was mentioned explicitly about ribbons, though Foose went on to say that she would honor the request.
"I don't want our collective desire to honor Grace to be overshadowed by debate around the method, which distracts from [her] memory," Foose said at the school board meeting. "If wearing a blue ribbon grants the McComas family and students and staff at Glenelg even just one moment of peace in their grief, then I will honor that request."
According to a post Friday on the Grace K. McComas Memorial Facebook page, the decision was more about saving face.
"Solving it quickly is a distraction from HCPSS mistakes and public scrutiny," the post said, "not Grace's memory."
According to The Baltimore Sun, Christine McComas was not sure whether she would attend the ceremony.
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