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...
