Terminally Ill 6 Year Old Boy Receives Honorary High School Diploma

Terminally Ill 6 Year Old Boy Receives Honorary High School Diploma.

ABC News – A terminally ill six-year-old from Waverly, Illinois, was honored at a local high school’s graduation ceremony last week after the senior class requested that he be given a diploma.

Jordan Planitz, who suffers from MPPH syndrome has cognitive issues and a shortened life expectancy due to his illness.

But after meeting with the graduating class of Tri-City high school in Buffalo, Illinois, earlier this year, Jordan made a lasting impression that inspired students to want to include him in their commencement.

“Earlier in the year, the principal at the time, Dustin Day, had a program called “Principal for a Day” where he would invite sick children to the school to act as principal,” Jordan’s mother, Deanna, explained to ABC news. “Jordan was invited and we went and met the most amazing senior class that you’ll ever come across. They took care of him all day, surrounded him going up and down stairs. It was a wonderful experience.”

Following the ‘Principle for a Day’ event, Deanna invited the senior class to Jordan’s birthday party in April. But the celebration conflicted with a prescheduled senior class trip.

The principal attended the party in the students absent and in turn invited the family to join him at the high school graduation ceremony on May 31.

“Then, a few days before the graduation, Day called me back and said ‘the seniors came to my office and told me since Jordan’s terminal and won’t be able to have his own graduation ceremony, they wanted to make him part of theres,'” said Deanna. “I was shocked. You just don’t find the entire senior class without much sincerity.”

The experience was an emotional one for the family.

“It was bittersweet at first,” she said. “I was watching all of these high school students getting up, receiving their diplomas and sitting down and knew that I won’t have that. Then Dustin Day announced Jordan, who was wearing his own little capping down, and the class president came out into the audience and they walked him up on stage.”

As Day presented Jordan with his own diploma, the entire gymnasium erupted with a standing ovation.

“It was so loud, you can hear yourself!” Said Deanna. “I was crying so hard I couldn’t even get pictures or video. I got to see a dream come true for Jordan and for myself.”