But culture can be changed. I remember a few years ago one parent wanted to submit a blurb to the school PTO newsletter about our chess team winning the state championship, and was told by the PTO that no specific names could appear in the blurb--can you imagine something like this if a sports team won a state title? I also remember that my DS (he was probably 8 or 9 at the time) talked with the principal about the chess team's victory, and the principal let him write down the names of the kids in the team and made an announcement to the whole school during daily announcement time. These days the PTO newsletter and the school newsletter routinely publish blurbs written by parents celebrating academic wins with participants' names spelled out. At show-and-tell time, some kids bring in sports trophies, my DD brings her violin and performs for the class. I'm fully supportive of this and am ready to talk with the teacher if it's a problem. But so far the teacher welcomed it very much. So I think things do change, if enough people push for change.
