2020 Graduation: A Memorable One

As every student, faculty member, and parent knows, our 2019-2020 school year ended very suddenly and abruptly due to an unfortunate circumstance, a global pandemic. Some underclassmen students were happy, many upperclassmen were upset, but the senior class of 2020 had it the worst as all the senior activities had to be cancelled when the state shut down all schools. It was unfortunate timing as the months to come would’ve been the best three months of the year, some seniors would say.

One main question was, what about graduation? The plan for graduation was up in the air as administration was sorting through the options of how they were going to have the ceremony. At first, it ranged from having a traditional ceremony that anyone could attend, to a ceremony live streamed that only the students could attend. On July 13th, Timberlane sent out the guidelines to the senior families on how the day would go.
TRHS decided on having an in person graduation. According to the Timberlane Regional High School Website, these were the guidelines that had to be followed:
Only two guests per graduate-they must have a ticket and all come in one car
Temperature checks upon arrival and they must have a Covid-19 Questionnaire filled out or must fill one out upon arrival
Masks required
Guests attending must sit in the rows of chairs behind the students in pairs of 2
After the ceremony, there will be no photos taken at the school, they must go right to their cars and wait to be escorted out

The day of graduation was July 18th. It was a very hot day. A 2020 Graduate, Seth Marcotte, said that “even though school was cancelled, I wasn’t surprised that we got graduation. I feel like since prom and cruise were taken away from us that we needed to have some form of a graduation”. Seth also stated that “the worst parts of this graduation were not being able to have the rest of my family and friends come watch, not being allowed to take pictures and celebrate with friends afterwards, and the brutal heat”.

Emily Augusta, another graduate from the class of 2020, gave some insight on what their procedure was. She explained, “when we got to the school, we had to go through the middle school to get our temperatures and then the administration escorted each student into the gym. There were chairs all 6 feet apart with everyone’s name on them so we had to find our chair and sit. A lot of people tried to get up and see their friends but we kept being told to stay seated so we sat there for what felt like forever”. Emily then said, “no one knew what they were doing because normally there are two rehearsals for graduation so it got a little out of order sometimes”. She ended by saying “in the end it ended up being really nice and I was really happy that we got an in person graduation”.

The 2020 graduation was without a doubt abnormal, but many members of the TRHS community were glad it happened.