Under normal circumstances, Starkville High School seniors would have picked up their graduation gowns and mortarboards in the school gym during their lunch periods on Wednesday.
Instead, a line of cars circled slowly through the parking lot behind the school for an hour as masked sales representatives from Herff Jones handed packages to students and parents through their car windows. Columbus High School students picked up their own memorabilia on Friday.
Both schools have had to reimagine their graduation ceremonies due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. SHS Principal Sean McDonnall said plans to adapt began in March as soon as in-person classes were canceled and he had to meet with senior class leadership via teleconference.
“I told them, ‘Guys, I’m sorry, we’re going to do as much as we can to make this memorable, so let’s embrace it and let’s not get upset about it,'” McDonnall said. “We’re going to remember this one forever, so start thinking now (about) how we can do graduation virtually.”
Both SHS and CHS will broadcast their pre-filmed graduation ceremonies on May 22 and 23, respectively, the days they were supposed to hold the ceremony in person at the Humphrey Coliseum on Mississippi State University’s campus.
Each student will walk across the stage in the CHS gym or Starkville’s Greensboro Center and receive a diploma in front of a set maximum of family members or guests — three for CHS and four for SHS — in order to adhere to social distancing protocols. Both schools will also pre-record the national anthem, the valedictorian and salutatorian’s speeches and remarks from administrators.
CHS will film its students walking on Monday and Tuesday, possibly Wednesday if necessary, and SHS will film its students from May 11 to May 13.
CHS Assistant Principal Craig Chapman said it takes a lot of planning to ensure the virtual ceremony will be done both quickly and safely.
“We wanted to make sure it was something more memorable than what we’re facing,” Chapman said. “It was very good for our hearts to make sure we had something for our students, and we’re still working on some small things to let them know we appreciate everything, all their accomplishments and what they’ve done for Columbus High School.”
Meanwhile, Lowndes County School District is “still holding out” for its three high schools to have in-person commencement ceremonies in June or July, but “the more we move toward the summer, the less likely it looks (to) happen,” Superintendent Sam Allison said.
LCSD is now considering other options, including a virtual ceremony like the other two districts have planned. Counselors and administrators at all three schools are receiving feedback from students about what they want graduation to look like if they cannot hold a traditional ceremony, Allison said.
“We need closure for those students, and we wanted to give them something knowing that they’re all going to be doing something different, whether they’re going to college or going to work or doing something else,” he said. “This pandemic has taken so many things from those kids.”
New Hope High School has about 200 graduating seniors, Caledonia High School has about 130 and West Lowndes High School has about 30, Allison said. All three graduation ceremonies were initially scheduled for May 23.
Columbus High will graduate 214, the same number of students that started the semester as seniors, Chapman said. Six of them also will graduate with associates degrees from East Mississippi Community College.
Not all of the roughly 290 SHS seniors are guaranteed to graduate at the moment but have the opportunity to get their grades up in time, and the pandemic has actually allowed some students to graduate who previously had not met the qualifications, McDonnall said.
“We had a whole list that weren’t going to graduate because they hadn’t passed the state tests yet, but now (the state Department of Education) has waived those and said, ‘We’ll just give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were going to pass,’ even though we’re not getting them,” McDonnall said. “So with that, we shouldn’t have too many not graduating.”
He added that it’s “very heartbreaking” that the seniors cannot celebrate the end of their high school careers in person with each other.
“My heart goes out to these kids for having the carpet yanked out from under them in the last nine weeks of their senior year,” McDonnall said. “They will be remembered for a long time here at Starkville High School for having endured it and made the best of it.”
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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