CELEBRATING SENIORS
With commencements postponed or canceled, families find fun ways to salute their high school grads
O“The decision to hold virtual graduation ceremonies has been perhaps the most difficult decision I have ever confronted as the district leader.” HISD interim superintendent Grenita Lathan
n the night of prom at Lamar High School, identical twins Catherine and Elizabeth Yow got dressed up, along with their parents. All decked out in their finery, the family of four took pictures, then sat down for an upscale meal of takeout.
And so go senior year traditions in 2020.
“There was no dancing because they didn’t really want to do that,” the twins’ mom, Linda Goehrs, laughed, but the parents did what they could to formally recognize the celebration while in lockdown.
Some districts are planning virtual graduation celebrations, others delayed in-person ceremonies, only to reschedule them with new guidance from the Texas Education Agency. As school leaders scramble to finalize commencements, many senior year milestones look different this year.
Along with approximately 11,000 other graduating seniors in Houston Independent School District, the Yows will experience Lamar’s commencement ceremony virtually in June.
They’ve been asked to submit a photo and a statement or phrase, which will be visible on screen as each name is read aloud. The ceremony will include recorded messages from district officials.
“The decision to hold virtual graduation ceremonies has been perhaps the most difficult decision I have ever confronted as the district leader,” interim superintendent Grenita Lathan said in a statement sent to families. However, I know that our amazing graduates will look back on these celebrations knowing that each of them was a part of history. … They deserve an unforgettable, historic send-off.”
The living room graduation is not the event
Goehrs had hoped for her daughters. Before the spread of coronavirus, she had invited friends and family to Lamar’s commencement at NRG Park, followed by a brunch she was hosting at a restaurant.
She admits that as a parent, she may be more saddened about the canceled ceremony than her daughters. “You know, they don’t know what they’re missing.”
For her part, Catherine Yow said, “I kind of knew it was inevitable. … We don’t know what we lost because it’s not like we’ve experienced it before.”
What’s harder, she said, was the abrupt way in which her senior year ended. Students weren’t able to say goodbye to one another before spring break, as HISD schools were closed the preceding Friday due to a water-main break.
“It’s kind of sad that was our last time together, and we almost took it for granted,” she said. “We didn’t realize it was our last day.”
Yow has found ways to connect with her peers since.
A member of Lamar’s band, Catherine was awarded state-level recognition this year for her accomplishments on the marimba. Each week, she’s organized an online meetup with her fellow percussionists.
“It’s really cool,” she said. “We just talk.”
It doesn’t replace the end-of-year band banquet she was looking forward to, at which seniors are honored in a slideshow, she said. Missing onetime events like that is “bittersweet.”
“The high point is we can kind of make our own traditions,” Yow said.
Catherine and her sister will have one last chance to see the mask-covered faces of their classmates when Lamar joins a citywide outdoor celebration on HISD high school campus
es June 5. Students are invited to wear their cap and gown. In a statement, officials hinted they will see prerecorded messages from celebrities.
“High school is a milestone,” Yow said. “At least we were able to enjoy it for as long as we did.”
Inspiration on Zoom
At The John Cooper School, a private school in The Woodlands with 104 graduating seniors, decisions around end-of-year events were student-led, said head of upper school Stephen Popp.
To collect feedback on how to adjust commencement ceremony plans, Popp said his team first held a webinar with students, then with their parents.
“They wanted to cross the stage,” he said. “That was something that was important to them.”
They told Popp they looked forward to hearing from the peers who will take the podium and speak to their collective high school experience.
Cooper’s ceremony was rescheduled for July. Other end-of-year initiatives were “curated” by senior class leaders, Popp said.
To give kids a chance to safely say goodbye to one another before the school year ended, the school organized a parking lot parade.
Students decorated vehicles to display their Cooper pride or pride for the university they’ll attend. As a surprise, faculty members came to cheer for them from a distance. A confetti cannon added to the festivities, and faculty shot drone footage to use in a tribute video for students.
As the seniors looped through the lot honking their horns, a parent group put personalized, congratulatory signs in each of their front yards as an added surprise.
During distance learning, seniors created the school’s first-ever senior class website. Each student has an individual page and the site hosts video messages from faculty and other “artifacts” of their senior year, Popp said.
And, students were invited to a series of
“Zoom With the Stars,” featuring quarantine-era encouragement from notable figures, including an NFL player and actress Mallory Bechtel, a Cooper alumna who starred in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “Dear Evan Hanson.”
It’s all part of an effort to lift spirits, Popp said.
“They’re handling it with such poise and it’s been really inspiring to watch. They’re resilient,” he said. “They’re staring into somewhat of an uncertain future in terms of what university is going to look like next year … but they’re still positive.”
Time to celebrate
During her school’s closure, Memorial High School senior Reagan Goodwine received a surprise at home one day when her varsity soccer team showed up.
In cars shoe-polished with MHS pride, the girls drove by the yards of the team’s eight graduating players. The caravan ended at their coach’s home, as a way of celebrating a season cut short.
The MHS team were state champions in 2018 and district champions in 2018, 2019 and 2020. This spring, they were preparing for playoffs when the season was canceled.
“Soccer is at the top of my daughter’s sad list,” Reagan’s mom, Tonja Goodwine, said. In addition to ending games, the traditional awards banquet was replaced with a Zoom event.
Reagan is Goodwine’s third child to graduate from MHS, and Goodwine said she was vocal about her desire for a traditional ceremony as Spring Branch ISD floated plans for a virtual graduation.
Goodwine emailed a member of the district’s board of trustees with her views, she said, and tried to encourage other parents to do the same.
“My daughter has been in this district since kindergarten,” she said, and her classmates are “her extended family.”
“It was important to me that these students have this closure and that they were all together to experience that,” she said, since they weren’t able to finish their senior year in other traditional ways.”
After initial plans to delay, Spring Branch ISD recently announced its high schools will have outdoor commencement ceremonies in June at Darrell Tully Stadium. The Goodwines have been told that each family will receive four tickets and that attendees will be scanned for COVID-19 symptoms upon entry. The school is supplying MHS masks to students who are required to wear them throughout the ceremony.
While they’re at the stadium, the Goodwines have invited extended family to watch the livestream from their home. Afterward, they’ll all gather to celebrate Reagan.
It’s the culmination of a
“They’re handling it with such poise and it’s been really inspiring to watch. They’re resilient. They’re staring into somewhat of an uncertain future in terms of what university is going to look like next year … but they’re still positive.” Head of upper school Stephen Popp The John Cooper School
semester where seniors missed out on signing yearbooks, the hype of the last day of school “and just saying goodbye,” Goodwine said.
“The next steps in their lives are important, but this is a time in their life that will never be repeated,” she said.
In the midst of missed traditions, new ones were created. In a neighborhood parade, seniors were invited to decorate cars and drive a route led by the Memorial Villages Police Department, with onlookers cheering from a distance.
Goodwine said the event was well-attended. “We have a very supportive community.”
Other neighborhoods have band together to show support for seniors.
In Bellaire, the Roylance family used Nextdoor to invite neighbors to an informal, socially distanced weekend celebration for daughter Raegan, with frozen treats from a Kona Ice truck.
Friends and neighbors of the Shethia family gathered to celebrate the high school seniors on the front lawn and driveway, where giant letters congratulated daughter Ishani Shethia.
In place of a neighborhood event held annually for seniors who are alumni of West University Elementary School, parents organized a car parade so residents could wave to students.
Parent organizations at Tomball High School and Tomball Memorial High School created “Adopt a Senior” Facebook groups, said Tomball ISD’s director of communications and marketing Allison Suarez.
Parents of seniors are encouraged to use the platform to “brag” about their children by posting photos and blurbs. The larger parent community is invited to help ensure each senior is “adopted” and receives end-of-year notes of encouragement, gifts and goodies.
“We need to find a positive outlet,” organizers posted on the page. “Let’s not lose sight of the young adults that have had so much taken from them due to COVID-19. Let’s come together and make our seniors feel important and special.”
Patience, then ‘Pomp and Circumstance’
Mark Desjardins is headmaster at St. John’s School. As his team began to cope earlier this spring with school closures, he said they reached out to see how families felt about graduation.
The overwhelming response, Desjardins said, was that students wanted to participate in person in the school’s traditional baccalaureate ceremony, commencement ceremony and senior dinner with faculty members.
Families shared that, “If we can’t have the full experience, it’s not worth it,” he said. “‘We’d rather be patient and wait,’ ” they told him.
The events were rescheduled for August.
“People really wanted … to gather as a community,” Desjardins said. “What we do is really personal and … deeply meaningful and deeply impactful.”
With bagpipers and “all sorts of rituals and traditions … it’s very special.”
“It’s the one event that I would say defines who we are.”
In the meantime, SJS recognized seniors’ accomplishments by hosting its awards ceremonies online.
In Desjardins’ observation, seniors are experiencing “just profound disappointment,” during a time that otherwise would have been the carefree chapter of high school that follows college acceptance.
“The fact that they could not be gathering daily and celebrating with their close friends, some of whom have been together since kindergarten, I would just say is very sad,” he said.
And, yet, “I think they also recognize and appreciate that we’re in this … very historic moment, and they’re not the only ones that are suffering,” he said. “The whole country and indeed the world is suffering.”
“Probably like many other peers around the country,” he said, “students are feeling emotions of both disappointment and excitement as they reach the milestone in an unprecedented manner.”
“It’s a tough place for our kids to be in, and they’re working through that in their own way,” he said.
For her part, Yow said recent weeks have made “extra excited for college.”
Along with her twin sister, Yow will attend Southwestern University in Georgetown.
She relishes the idea of decorating her dorm room, signing up for clubs and for all aspects of “student life on campus,” she said.
She’s aware her freshman year might be adjusted due to COVID-19 concerns, she said, but she’s steadfast she’ll make it to campus one day.
After a senior year that ended in loss, she said, perhaps she and her peers will look to new experiences “and not take it for granted as much.”
many “Probably around other the peers like country, students are feeling emotions of both disappointment and excitement as they reach the milestone in an unprecedented manner.” Mark Desjardins, headmaster St. John’s School