Virtual Graduation Ceremony Scheduled for June 7; Tentative In-Person Date Set for July 19
Apr 30, 2020
District 219 will hold a virtual graduation for the Class of 2020 on Sunday, June 7, according to a Thursday email from principal Dr. Karen Ritter.
Graduating seniors were asked to submit a photo of themselves wearing their cap and gown, which will be organized in a PowerPoint presentation. Families will receive the link to view the presentation. No information was included as to how students should submit this photo.
Student and staff speeches will also be digitally available in the PowerPoint, although the way this would be handled was not immediately clear. More information is said to be forthcoming.
A tentative physical graduation ceremony has been scheduled for Sunday, July 19, at the Rosemont Theatre. This ceremony will only be held if guidelines for social distancing are relaxed, and bans on large gatherings are lifted.
Despite the possibility of an in-person graduation in July, the email made clear that there will be no attempt to reschedule prom. A “senior sendoff” may occur in late July, although no details were given on what this would include.
The email included no information on the possibility of an online Accolades ceremony, which would have occurred in May.
Anonymous • May 11, 2020 at 10:21 PM
This administration has done a horrible job at handling this situation, specifically with seniors. As always under this administration, there has been a lack of communication between them and students and parents. A powerpoint of students’ pictures doesn’t even suffice as a form of “virtual graduation”. On top of that, there are options for an in person, socially distanced graduation such as a drive through experience, rather than a hypothetical, tentative, possible future date. Making students come pick up all of their senior mementos, as if it would be so difficult to mail out caps, gowns and lawn signs…. And to go through the entire schools lockers, bagging everything up and disregarding the fact that almost all lockers are shared between two people. Many students have belongings at school in places other than lockers, and have not been given any option or opportunity to pick those items up. It seems that seniors have just been kicked to the curb. Though they couldn’t have their typical senior experience, and this is a trying time for us all, it would have been nice to see some effort from the administration to try to make the Class of 2020s year a little brighter.