The Atlanta-raised singer, songwriter and sometimes actor CeeLo Green was one of four people awarded honorary diplomas by Atlanta Public Schools this year.
The school board adopted a new initiative allowing honorary diplomas to be bestowed for the following reasons: a person who made exceptional contributions to education, the community or a particular field; a student who died close to graduating; or a student who died during military service that interrupted high school.
Green joined Larry Platt, Bryce Brooks and Bre’Asia Powell in receiving the honor. Platt left high school in the 1960s and became an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. He also gained notoriety in 2010 for performing the song “Pants on the Ground” on the TV show “American Idol.” Brooks, the son of Atlanta school board member Alfred “Shivy” Brooks and a Maynard H. Jackson High student, drowned during a spring break trip in 2023 while trying to rescue some younger children. Powell, a student at Benjamin E. Mays High School, was killed by a stray bullet at an informal gathering in 2023. Powell’s death stunned the community, including Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who said he was “heartbroken” by her killing. Several teenagers were charged with murder in her death.
Credit: Family photo
Credit: Family photo
Board of Education Chair Erika Mitchell drafted the new honorary diploma policy. She said she got the idea while attending graduation ceremonies in 2024.
“What stuck out to me was that parents of students that are no longer with us … walk onstage and receive an empty folder,” she said. “There was no diploma. There was nothing.”
She researched what other schools around the country had done and came up with the idea to confer honorary diplomas. She drafted the policy, which was approved by the board.
“So we have (an honorary diploma) for our students that we lost along the way, but we have another one for people who made tremendous impact to society but didn’t have the opportunity to graduate,” she said.
Green rose to fame as part of the groups Gnarls Barkley and Goodie Mob. He was also a coach on the singing competition show “The Voice” for several seasons. Green once rapped in the hit song “Git Up, Git Out,” “I don’t recall, ever graduating at all.”
He attended Mays High School, but didn’t graduate. Mitchell surprised him with an honorary diploma at his 50th birthday party last week. He said it was a pleasant surprise.
“I set out to make and be an example of drive and motivation and endurance and resilience in a musical realm, but that also extends itself over to a social circle that becomes communal, becomes conversational, and the companion piece, so it’s really meaningful and significant,” Green said.
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