Local school district comes up with alternative plan to celebrate high school grads graduates

Roughly 50 students are set to graduate from AHS this year, including Paige Matthews.

“I’m very excited, I thought it wasn’t going to happen due to the coronavirus,” said Matthews, a senior at AHS. “We worked hard all 12 years, me and my classmates, and just seeing everybody make it is exciting.”

The graduating class spent Tuesday morning picking up their caps and gowns and senior banners ahead of next month’s graduation.

Matthews called it a rewarding feeling knowing she’s now one step closer to graduation.

However, the senior said this moment of excitement still doesn’t erase the devastating feeling of having her senior year cut short.

“Nobody knew that after spring break we would never come back to school,” Matthews expressed. “It was devastating our last few months of senior year, and the plans that we had coming up are crushed.”

Some of those plans included banquets and prom.

Seeing what students are going through, district leaders wanted to ensure seniors would still have a graduation, so they came up with an alternative plan.

The soon-to-be-graduates will have a walk through ceremony that will be recorded and edited, then aired for students and their families to watch together.

“We hired a videographer, he’s going to come in on May 11th, and we’ve told each student, each senior that he or she could bring eight people with them,” said Dr. Dana Bullard, AHS Principal. “We are going to go into the theater and they are going to get their diplomas one at a time. We rented a big screen, we’re going to put the big screen up in the parking lot and show it like a drive-in movie. We’ve contacted the radio station, and they are going to play the audio while the kids are watching the video. I’m going to tell them that when they call their name out, everybody can honk their horn’s and stuff like that, so it’s going to be something different.”

The young scholars said they’re appreciative of this gesture knowing school leaders are going the extra mile to honor and recognize them for all of their hard work.

“With all that’s going on, I hate we had to graduate like this, but something is better than nothing,” said Gabrielle Drake, AHS senior.

“I thank my school for not giving up on the seniors and just giving us a chance to have this moment,” said Matthews.

The video will be aired at the high school’s parking lot on May 21st, which is also the date students were set to graduate.

To help practice social distancing, school leaders are asking everyone to remain in their vehicles while the video is playing.

All graduating seniors will be given a copy of the video.