+1 soccmomer.
I think it may all come down to the size of the school. Our kids class size was @300 and the awards ceremony took over two hours.
~~~ Typically for a ROTC presentation it is not thirty seconds of Sam Jones awarded 25k to Timbucktoo University. It is several minutes of selling the crowd, giving stats of how many applied, how much it is worth, how they will have a job as soon as the graduate. Honestly, part of this from the ROTC perspective is recruiting for the future.
At our DS's school, I think there were a total of 10 recipients, every SA had a student appointed, and then there were 2 AROTC, 2 AFROTC and 1 NROTC. Multiply that by 4 minutes each and you have 40 minutes added to the clock. As I said, our kids class size was 300. If the class size was 500 or 800 like the larger hs in our county it would be a 4+ hour ceremony.
Hence, why they may have decided not to include ROTC recipients. I know at the larger hs in our county, some actually do a private presentation during the day. These schools all have JROTC and all of the JROTC students are allowed to skip whatever class they are in for the presentations.
Thus, just that fact alone the recipients are the talk of the school because kids do talk, and the 1st thing they want to know is why are THEY allowed to be excused from chemistry, but we have to stay and listen to old Mrs Craggy drone on for the next hour?
Answer: Because they are attending the ROTC scholarship presentation.
It also makes it home to the folks.
Mom of 10th grader: How was school today?
Child: Great! I got to skip fourth period for the ROTC scholarship presentations.
Mom: What is that?
In both cases ROTC completed their true goal. Putting it out there that the military pays for college. Parents and families are happy because in their eyes their child has a moment in the sun. The HS is happy because their award ceremony has been reduced by about 45 minutes.
I will also add that the majority of kids that get AFROTC scholarships typically also get merit too, thus they will be recognized.
~~~ Our kids went to two different HS in two different states. For our DD's ceremony they did it differently than DS's. At her HS they called each student up alphabetically and announced all of the scholarships they received in one fell swoop. At DSs they went scholarship by scholarship, so his name was announced three times.
Just putting it out there of how every HS is different and they have been doing this for many years, as much as we want our children to have a moment in the sun, the true moment will be graduation.