SOUTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A metro family was devastated after their honor roll student was killed in a terrible crash just months before graduation.
Now they’re upset because the district says she won’t receive a posthumous diploma.
Before the graduation ceremony, administrators at Banneker High School honored the student at an event and gave her family a trophy to recognize her achievements.
The problem is the school won’t give the family her diploma and they took her name out of the graduation program.
Ky’le Harris’ family said she was all smiles the last weeks of her life.
“That’s all she talked about, was graduating. ‘I’m about to graduate!’ She was so happy,” said Crystal Harris, Ky’le’s mother.
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He mother said Ky’le was also excited about heading to Georgia State University in the fall.
But on Jan. 8, she crashed her car and died during a rainstorm.
Her grandmother, Pat Gregory, told Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes that she is still having a hard time coping with the grief.
“I cry every day. I just miss her so much. She was my right hand. She did everything for me,” Gregory said.
Her family said they went straight to the principal to make sure they could get Ky’le’s diploma but when they actually got to graduation, there was no diploma for her.
Her name wasn’t even in the program.
Administrators did honor the family with a plaque and moment of silence, but that’s not enough for them.
“The diploma was a keepsake for us to have in memory of our baby gone. Because she left way too soon for me,” Gregory said.
“I’m never going to get to see her walk down the aisle, have her own family, have a career, have babies, you know, nothing. So to take her diploma, the last thing I can get that she worked for and achieved – and I can’t get that?” Crystal Harris said.
When Fernandes reached out to the Fulton County School District, they admitted to not giving the family the diploma. The district said their reason is it doesn’t give diplomas to students who have died.
The family believes they need to change that policy.
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