Schools announce graduation plans
‘We have to do what’s best for the community. The last thing we want is to have a super-spreader event.’
The mood at the Rappahannock County Public School Board meeting on Tuesday night was at once relieved and triumphant, re ecting the schools’ sense of achievement a er successfully bringing all students in grades K-12 back to in-person learning four days a week.
The evening began with the School Board presenting Emily Scheulen (Rappahannock County Elementary School) and Camden Shanks (Rappahannock County High School) with certificates for winning their local divisions of the Virginia School Board Association art contest. The board also gave runners-up Isaac Plaksin (RCES) and Cassidy Trevor (RCHS) certificates of recognition for their participation in the contest. With their families in attendance, the students held up their artwork and posed for photos with the board’s chair, Wes Mills, and Dr. Shannon Grimsley, RCPS superintendent.
Later in the evening, RCHS Principal Jimmy Swindler presented an update on spring activities, including senior events and graduation. Swindler reviewed the newly-released guidance from the Virginia Governor’s O ce, explaining that for indoor graduations, attendance cannot exceed 30 percent of the venue’s capacity or 500 people, whichever is less. Outdoors, total attendance cannot exceed 30 percent of the venue’s capacity or 5,000 people, whichever is less.
“They did make a lot of exceptions but … those guidelines, we have to take them into account with everything we do,” Swindler said.
“We cannot a ord to label something as something it is not in order to sneak under the rules and we can’t a ord to break the rules, it’s just as simple as that. I know that some of our parents have struggled with that and some of our students have, but we have to do what’s best for the community. The last thing we want is to have a super-spreader event. I’d like to think we’re on the downhill side of this pandemic … but we still have a long ways to go.”
From a survey soliciting parent and student input, RCPS found that 95 percent of the 37 respondents preferred to have an outdoor graduation ceremony at Panther Stadium on Friday, May 28, with a possible rain date on Saturday, May 29. Following the governor’s guidance, each student would be allowed to bring up to 25 guests and each student’s group would be given a designated spot on the eld to minimize close contact.
“We’re going to invite people to bring their own lawn chairs and their own blankets, whatever they want, we’re going to set it up as an outdoor event … and I believe this is the rst time we’ve ever done an outdoor graduation,” Swindler said.
Dr. Swindler walked the board members through RCHS’ planned senior activities, which include:
► Distributing “Class of 2021” yard signs to each home in mid-April.
► Senior Nights at the rst home game for athletic events.
► “Decision Week” celebrations to applaud students for the many post-graduation paths they have chosen, whether it be a traditional four-year college, community college, trade school, a gap year or something else.
► A Senior Banquet on the RCHS practice eld with a tent provided by the Rappahannock County Sheri ’s O ce and decorations provided by RCHS parents on May 16.
► An alternative prom bon re and movie event on May 22.
► Senior picnic at Rappahannock County Park on May 26.
About prom, Swindler said, “this … is the most di cult activity to have to gure out. Because there’s no way that you can slice this and dice it and make a traditional prom t under the regulations we have to operate under. But we know … the seniors would really like to have some sort of a formal, dress-up prom, so what we’re going to plan on [is] … a seniors-only formal event prom.
“It will be outdoors, it will be under a tent, there will be music but we’re going to be very speci c about the rules … basically every group that comes, we seat at a table, whether it’s four or six or even eight, and they have to stay together. We’ll have music, they can dance at their table. But there won’t be a common dance oor where they can all mingle, and that’s going to be di cult, I know that’s going to be di cult — you know, the mask thing has been easy. The hardest thing for students — and grown ups — is enforcing that six-foot thing,” Swindler said.”
“Of all the things we’re doing,” Swindler continued, “this one in my mind is the most fraught with di culty but it’s also the one, I think, that’s going to make the biggest di erence to so many of our kids.”
Stay tuned for a more complete spring events calendar from Rappahannock County Public Schools.