A Grand Prairie, Texas, mother walked into the principal’s office of her daughter’s school with a stern look on her face, but she would turn to smiling and dancing by the time she left.
That’s because rather than learning that December day that her daughter was getting disciplined, she discovered the student had been accepted into Grambling State University in Louisiana.
However, Lajuana McCree didn’t know that when South Grand Prairie Early College High School decided to surprise her late last year. McCree’s 18-year-old daughter, Promise McCree, is a senior at the school that gives students the chance to take multiple dual-credit courses to get ahead before they enter college.
“I was ready for war, that’s it” Lajuana McCree told WFAA Feb. 19 with a chuckle. “I thought Promise had gotten into some serious trouble.”
“So when she came up here, she looked at me like, ‘what did you do’?” Promise McCree remembered.
But when she told her mother she got accepted into the historically Black university, her mom’s rigid expression melted away and a smile swept over her face. Lajuana McCree promptly squealed in delight and even busted out a little dance move.
“Her face just lit up and I didn’t even know what to say,” the teen said. “I was just speechless.”
“When she told me, all the anxiety went away. And yeah, I did a dance, a celebration dance, it’s called a twerk … that’s a proper response for her being accepted,” Lajuana McCree said with a laugh.
Promise McCree is the youngest of three sisters, and she’ll have obtained her associate’s degree when she graduates at the end of the school year.
The video was filmed late last year but shared this week after Promise McCree committed to Grambling over the weekend.
“It’s not often you see a parent happy to be called to the principal’s office but LaJuana McCree’s weariness quickly turned into a celebration,” the post on Grand Prairie ISD’s Facebook page read in part. “Ms. McCree’s pride and dance moves could not be contained at the news her daughter had received an acceptance letter to Grambling State University.”
Promise McCree plans to study criminal psychology and will now be the first college-bound member of the family.
“Promise is a true gift from God to me. She’s a mentor to her younger cousins and is very family oriented,” LaJuana McCree expounded to the Star-Telegram of her daughter’s devotion to family and her smarts. “She always wanted to watch the Discovery Channel as a kid, and find out about planets and science, so I had to find out about those things, too, because she was so inquisitive, always had all these questions.”
