Eyeing safety, an ‘intimate’ high school graduation emerges during coronavirus pandemic
The high school graduating class of 2020 will certainly go down in history.
A global pandemic wiped out the seniors’ final two months on campus. They served as the guinea pigs for a transformation to online education. And they graduate bound for an uncertain future in a COVID-19 world.
But Treasure Valley high school seniors get one last taste of the high school experience they were promised with graduations in the coming weeks.
Boise’s Capital High School hosted the first in-person graduation of the area’s major high schools Monday. The rest of the Boise School District follows this week.
“I was looking forward to getting in the whole arena and seeing everyone and watching all my friends graduate,” Capital honors student Rami Gonzalez said. “But this experience is humbling in the fact that we still get something. I’m grateful they put in any effort for us.”
Efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus turned the traditional graduation ceremonies on their head.
A solemn auxiliary gym replaced the raucous ExtraMile Arena at Boise State. A line of socially distant cars replaced thousands of friends and family. And intimate family groups replaced the procession of 394 graduates who navigated a 13-year educational career together.
Capital even had to pivot as the weather forecast predicted, and delivered, rain. So the school shrank its ceremony from two outdoor stages to one in the school’s auxiliary gym.
“Why not?” Capital principal Derek Gardner joked. “It’s the class of 2020.”
While different, the ceremony still resembled many graduation traditions. Mothers fussed with their sons’ caps. Fathers put the final touches on their daughters’ gowns. And beaming parents posed for photos with their freshly graduated children, a few tears in mothers’ eyes.
Gonzalez’s mother, Debbie Roe, said she initially worried about a socially distant graduation. Her daughter already lost her senior prom and her senior track season. But after watching her walk across the stage, she said she was thankful the school honored all of her daughter’s hard work.
“They did it very nice,” Roe said. “I was very impressed. It was very emotional. It wasn’t the traditional way, but she still got to graduate.”
Some students even said the smaller ceremony had its advantages and called it more personal.
To avoid large groups, Capital graduates arrived at staggered times. Students with last names starting with “A” and “B” came from 9 to 10 a.m. The schedule wrapped with “U” through “Z” from 7 to 8 p.m.
Families lined up in cars snaking around Capital’s campus. When it was their turn, they approached one family at a time before moving into the auxiliary gym. An announcer trumpeted the students’ names. They walked across the stage, posed for photos, then turned the tassel on their caps and posed for more photos.
Taped arrows on the floor directed students and families outside, where they could exhale and soak in the moment.
Anna Gamel, another honors student, said she appreciated not having to wait hours through speeches and the reading of all 394 graduates. The smaller ceremony even allowed her the freedom to set off a handheld confetti cannon on the stage, something surely not allowed at Boise State.
“I was really hoping to be able to throw my cap, but that didn’t happen. So I did an explosion instead,” Gamel said. “You’ve got to roll with it and have fun.”
Vanessa Diaz said she looked forward to taking pictures with her friends in their caps and gowns, pictures and memories that would have lasted a lifetime. But she added she felt safe in the smaller graduation.
“I’m OK for now,” Diaz said. “Maybe next time when this whole thing clears out, we’ll take photos.”
Teachers took shifts lining the parking lot, holding homemade signs and dancing as cars full of students drove past. English teacher Blas Telleria Jr. said it helped provide teachers some closure, too.
Teachers and students left school on Friday, March 13, having no idea it was their last day together. Idaho announced its first confirmed case of the coronavirus that afternoon, and the Boise School District closed all its buildings that Sunday evening.
“I don’t think anybody knew how it was all going to play out,” Telleria said. “But from all the smiles I’m seeing on students’ and parents’ faces, I think they are really appreciative something was done.
“I think they are appreciative it’s a little more intimate than what they expected.”
This story was originally published May 18, 2020 at 2:34 PM.
