I am currently a senior at Piedmont High School. If there is one thing that my senior friends and I can agree on, it is that we have been robbed of many memories and rites of passage. I will never experience prom, senior ditch day, or day on the green. However, there was still one rite of passage that can be saved: our graduation ceremony.
Thankfully, the administration values student interest and was able to make an in-person traditional ceremony possible (with social distancing of course). I would like to personally thank the administration for bending over backwards to make this graduation ceremony possible for us. We truly are lucky to go to Piedmont.
Before the administration announced that we would have an in-person graduation, there was a survey that was given to all of the seniors. The survey gave us three commencement options: virtual graduation, virtual graduation and another event that adhered to the current CDC requirements, and rescheduling the traditional commencement to a later date (which would most likely be next school year). I had yet to speak to one senior that wanted a virtual commencement. However, it didn’t make sense to go off to college and then come back to our home town to have our high school graduation ceremony. It would feel like we were going backwards, and it would be especially awkward because there would be other seniors currently in the high school.
Although we were able to have an in-person graduation on Witter field, at the time I had come up with an alternative to the three options on the survey that adhered to CDC requirements while giving us the best experience possible. As many Piedmont residents know, there is a fourth of July parade that happens every year that takes place on Highland Avenue. Families line up on each side of the street to watch the cars roll by and kids yell for the cars to throw them candy. I believe it would have been possible to do the same thing for a graduation ceremony. This would have given us the opportunity to celebrate our graduation in the same way that we grew up celebrating the Fourth of July. Families could line up on either side of Highland and stand six feet apart. Students would parade down the street, socially distancing in their caps and gowns, while being congratulated by loved ones and their community on either side. Mr. Littlefield would be on the grandstand, congratulating each student walking by while Pomp and circumstance played. The valedictorian would even have a chance to make her speech.
I understand that the main reason the original three options were given was due to the fact that it is difficult to imagine a traditional commencement ceremony that adheres to social distancing requirements. While the three options that the school presented gave us at least some type of ceremony, they were unimaginative and I thought that some creativity could have been put into the prospective solutions. Thankfully, the school did, too.
Although we have been presented with an obstacle that seems to have ruined our graduation, We did get to walk for graduation. We may not be able to celebrate our graduation in the way that it has been before, but this town’s parents, students, and administration are always willing to try. Thanks for Witter, but maybe a Fourth of July style graduation could be the best yet – safely socially distant, of course.
