Furious Parents Blast Schools for Forcing Students to Walk in Torrential Rain

Tennessee parents are furious after two high school graduations turned into a soggy disaster, with students forced to collect their diplomas in a downpour while families watched from rain-soaked bleachers.

Centennial High School and Franklin High School both moved forward with outdoor graduation ceremonies Thursday night, even as heavy rain drenched students, parents, grandparents and guests.

For many families, it was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime celebration. Instead, it became a miserable mess.

“As soon as they started speaking, it started pouring,” Victoria Burls, whose daughter Gabriella graduated from Centennial High School, told WSMV.

Burls said the rain became so intense she worried elderly guests might slip and fall in the bleachers. Her daughter was so soaked by the end of the ceremony that she is already planning to retake graduation photos on the football field.

Another parent, Britney Garner, said her daughter Akyla had spent hours getting ready for the big night. But when the rain came pouring down, Garner grabbed an umbrella and rushed toward the field to try to shield her child.

“My child who had put so much into this day to make it special, and was so excited, I could just not stand to sit there and see her get drowned like that,” Garner said.

Centennial graduate Brooklynn Broadnax said she had only a poncho to protect her. Her prom shoes were filled with water.

“My shoes were like puddles,” she told WTVF.

The rain also reportedly forced parts of the ceremony to be cut, including a planned moment of silence for a classmate who died last year.

“Penelope was going to graduate with us. We could at least do a moment of silence,” Broadnax said.

The outrage quickly spread online. Michelle Wyatt, Broadnax’s godmother, blasted the school on social media, writing that Centennial High School was “totally OUT OF ORDER” and that the students “deserved to have a graduation.”

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene also weighed in, calling the situation “ridiculous.”

“The school should have organized graduation indoors,” Greene wrote on X. “The graduates and their families deserved a nice ceremony.”

She also pointed out that parents are taxpayers who fund the schools and administrators’ salaries, saying families should not be treated that way.

Williamson County School Superintendent Jason Golden defended the decision, saying forecasts suggested the ceremonies could finish before another wave of rain arrived. He said conditions changed unexpectedly.

“While the rain impacted those two ceremonies, it could not diminish our pride in our Centennial and Franklin graduates,” Golden said.

But for many parents, that explanation is not enough.

They say their children worked for years to reach this milestone, and instead of getting the ceremony they deserved, they were left soaked, rushed and disappointed on a night they can never get back.