Graduation 2020 during COVID-19
Graduation 2020. Schools are scrambling to make arrangements to honor the senior class in a world of social distancing.
For the students, graduation day is something they've been thinking about for years.
One last gathering with their friends, walking across the stage, receiving their diploma wearing their school colors, cap and gown.
Memories that have been lost due to COVID-19.
Shannel Swiader: Highlands Ranch High School
“The fact that we will be remembered forever as the class that didn’t get to experience all the things that most seniors do.”
“Things that I’m missing most about my senior year are the interactions with teachers and my peers. A lot of us are going separate directions next year. There’s quite possibly people that I will never see again, and I didn’t know that my last day of school was my last day until weeks after.”
Meron Siyoum: Rangeview High School
“High school graduation is something that we all kind of dreamed about since kindergarten, and so it’s like we are in 12th grade we get to graduate and all that work is going to get paid off. So the fact that I’m finally a senior and I don’t get to have a graduation, my first graduation is going to happen after 16 years when I’m in college, it kind of hurts.”
Voices from the Class of 2020
Hassan Shahzad: The Academy Charter School
“Goes to show that we are a little bit unlucky in that sense, but I also think it shows our uniqueness, shows we are resilient."
"A lot of things were taken away from us: prom, graduation, a lot of things that we won’t experience. You got to go on, you have to push through it and it had to be somebody, it just so happened to be us.”
Zach Anderson: Mountain Vista High School
“No one really expected their senior year to be like this. You go into your senior year and you get into the second semester and it’s going to start leveling out and everyone is going to start enjoying themselves toward the end of the semester, then you get hit with, hey here’s the coronavirus and now we are all in quarantine. So it’s been a journey for sure, a lot of emotions for sure.”