The days of watching a graduation ceremony from the passenger seat of a car seem to be over for local high schools.
Vallejo, Jesse Bethel, St. Patrick-St. Vincent, Benicia, American Canyon and John Finney high schools will all be returning to a more traditional commencement event during the next few weeks, starting with St. Pat’s this Saturday. Some schools, such as Vallejo, Bethel and possibly Benicia, will be doing two events on the same day, with certain students showing up at one time and the other half at another time later in the day based on what letter their last name begins with.
St. Pat’s has 107 students in its 2021 graduating class, according to the school’s dean of students, Lane Hawkins.
“It’s a traditional ceremony again, but just with some minor tweaks,” Hawkins said. “We didn’t have any kind of conversation with the parents, we just assumed this is what they wanted. The one difficult thing was limiting the number of tickets per student to four, as it was usually 10 in the past. We’re still going to be socially distant with the families sitting together and more than six feet from each other and the students will be socially distant as well.”
Vallejo, Bethel and Finney will all be holding graduation ceremonies outside at Corbus Field at Vallejo High. The honor and graduation ceremonies are scheduled over a 3-day period starting with the Leadership Academy at 10 a.m. on June 9, and Finney later that same day at 1 p.m. Vallejo High will have its commencement event on June 10, with one group at 10 a.m. and the next group later that day at 1 p.m. Each group is expected to have a one-hour ceremony.
As a result of Solano County still being in the red tier of COVID-19 protocols, the maximum capacity is limited to 20 percent of total capacity, or 792 people. This includes the graduates, guests and staff. According to the Vallejo City Unified School District, further analysis was conducted to maximize the total number of attendees for each ceremony.
Capacity limitations require that Vallejo and Bethel High graduations be conducted with two ceremonies each day and the students be limited to having three guests per graduate. Finney graduates are allowed to have four guests. All ceremonies will be live-streamed.
Benicia has similar guidelines, but will know more information on Monday. Solano County’s red tier status means gatherings are still being restricted. Benicia will have a modified in-person graduation ceremony on Saturday, June 5 and will live-stream the event.
How the ceremony goes on that day will depend on a few factors. If Solano County is still in the red tier on Monday, the school will hold two graduation ceremonies — one at 10 a.m. for students with last names A-L and one at 2 p.m. for students with last names M-Z. Two tickets per graduate will be allowed.
If, however, Solano County moves up to the orange tier as of Monday, only one graduation ceremony will take place, starting at 11 a.m. with two tickets per graduate allowed.
“The difficulty in planning graduation this year has been unlike any previous year due to the need to evaluate the County’s tier for safety guidelines with the hope of providing the most inclusive and celebratory graduation possible,” Benicia Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Charles Young said. “Last year, we knew we needed to plan within a given set of restrictions. This year has proved to be even more difficult because of frequent changes and the strong desire of our school community to return to normal and have a full graduation again.
“Our parents and families have been supportive and understanding,” Young continued. “Some parents reached out wanting the filmed and produced graduation that we provided last year followed by the drive-thru diploma pick up. The majority of parents and students want the traditional graduation. To address student input, the BHS Principal Ms. Brianna Kleinschmidt met with the seniors in our student leadership class to hear their thoughts and gather their feedback. We have communicated with the Class of 2021 Seniors and families since January to keep them updated and provide dates for future updates to keep everyone informed.”
American Canyon’s graduation — set for June 15, the day Gov. Newsom has set for dropping the tier system and “opening” the state — won’t be limited with restrictive gathering guidelines. Some people like Jesse Bethel High parent Teddi Schull have complained about this issue. Schull encouraged officials to move the Vallejo and Bethel events to June 15 so restrictions could be lifted, or count the football field as well as the bleachers for proximity to enlarge the maximum capacity for the event. Schull said that a fire marshal is scheduled to visit Corbus Field later this week and determine if the maximum capacity could in fact go up.
“No stakeholders were asked for input,” Schull wrote the Times-Herald. “Parents and or the seniors. This is a huge milestone in their life. This pandemic has robbed them of every right of passage of senior year, and a very tumultuous year at that. They have not been together for a year and a half and the one time when they have an opportunity to be together for one last time … It just shows me that nobody gives a care about the students, no extra mile, no thinking outside the box, quite the contrary, quite the opposite.”
American Canyon High Principal Crystal Lopez is glad to have a more normal setting for commencement the day California officially reopens. The graduation for ACHS begins at 4 p.m. that day, with each student being allowed four guests per graduate.
“Our drive-through celebration last year was a wonderful event that really focused on individual students with their families, which was a great bonus during the lockdown,” Lopez said. “It was also OK at that time because the class of 2020 had collective experiences and memories together. The class of 2021, on the other hand, has far fewer collective experiences like prom and homecoming. Traditional ceremonies are truly a celebration of the collective four years spent as friends and classmates together. An in-person ceremony gives the class of 2021 one last opportunity to be together and have that experience as a group.”
Although the state will reopen on June 15, Lopez said ACHS is still siding on caution.
“We still lack clarity about what will come on June 15th, so we are sticking with our current guidelines,” Lopez said. “Based on the CDC recommendations, masking and distancing are no longer required for fully vaccinated people. Being that we are a school and serve families with students at our high school and potentially younger, we are very mindful that many children are not fully vaccinated or are too young to be eligible for vaccination. We know that COVID still does exist, and we do see children with COVID. The current recommendation from the CDC and the state of California for schools is to continue masking and distancing.”
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Local high schools going back to traditional graduation ceremonies - Vallejo Times-Herald
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