School Officials Apologize After Students with Special Needs Allegedly Excluded from Grad Ceremony

"I was very upset…I'm like, ‘Why did we even come?’ “ Linda Ramirez, the parent of a high school student with special needs, tells PEOPLEDavid Chiu is a digital news writer for PEOPLE. A former PEOPLE intern from 2007 to 2008, he has been writing about news and entertainment for over 10 years.

Georgia school officials apologized on Thursday, June 13, over a high school graduation ceremony last month in which students with special needs were allegedly excluded from fully participating and instead Ramirez says that she wanted Rich to participate in the main commencement ceremony at Kennesaw State University like what her older siblings have experienced. But Rich and several other students with special needs didn't have that opportunity, according to Ramirez.

Ramirez says that she didn't know that Rich and the other special ed students weren't going to be with the general ed students until the day of the ceremony. She recalls having a phone conversation with a teacher when she arrived at the commencement. In a statement shared with PEOPLE on June 14. a representative for the Cobb County School District wrote: “Every year we graduate approximately 8,000 students and every special needs parent, in every Cobb school, chooses how their child is celebrated. Some Cobb families choose a full graduation ceremony, some choose to protect their child from noise, stimuli or attention in a variety of ways.

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