A Graduation to Remember

This was certainly an unusual way to end a strange school year. I never would've thought back in December that an unknown virus on the other side of the world would impact our lives so much over the last few months and prevent us from taking the Senior Trip to NYC or having a normal graduation ceremony, but here we are.

Even with all of the uncertainty, I am extremely proud of how our staff came through and pulled out all of the stops to make this untraditional experience the best it could be for our students.

In less than two weeks, I learned how to use Final Cut Pro well enough to create this video tribute for our graduates. When I started making this video, there was a chance that broadcasting this would be the closest we could get to an actual graduation ceremony, so we wanted to make it special. Other Senior Advisors helped me get in touch with all families to be a part of this video project by submitting a recording of their child's name by leaving a message on my Google Voice. I worked with the yearbook team to get senior photos for each member of the graduating class and created a template showing the honor cords for each student in Canva.

Last night, we had a graduate parade through New London where all graduating seniors could drive through down with all of their loved ones and teachers waving and honking their horns from the roadside parking and sidewalks.

Today, we sent everyone off with a Drive-Through Graduation Ceremony, which was an all-hands-on-deck situation. Teachers were in the parking lot directing traffic, getting people to assigned spaces, and managing the three waves of graduates we scheduled to accommodate two cars for each graduate. Others passed out diplomas, managed Junior Marshals, gave away a gift bag at the end, and I got the pleasure of standing in the back of a truck to film the whole thing.

It was unbelievable getting to see all of these students, many of whom I've had four times receive their diplomas, even if it was from the back of a pickup.