On Saturday, April 18, Florida Governor Ron Desantis announced the closure of school for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year due to the COVID-19 outbreak. With schools officially being closed for the rest of the school year, seniors are concerned as to what will occur now regarding graduation. With big senior events already being canceled, such as prom, grad bash, cord ceremony and senior nights for athletes and now the transition to virtual graduation, seniors await answers as to what will happen to the rest of their senior year.
For the first time ever, Broward County Public Schools will now have to be creative on how to provide the class of 2020 with a new graduation, enabling them to continue on to the next chapter of their lives.
One way that BCPS is getting ideas from around the county is a committee of two student representatives from every school across the district to propose different ideas.
The two representatives for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are Senior Class President, Nick Joseph, and Student Government Association President, Isaac Christian.
“I along with the rest of the representatives from the other schools each take turns expressing ideas on what we feel would be the best alternative for a traditional graduation just in case it isn’t able to happen.” Christian said. “So as for the process being explained to me, it’s essentially an open floor for questions and suggestions.”
This committee is run by the school board itself, but the Student Activities Liaison for the county, Xenia Santiago, oversees the meeting and gauges the conversations.
This committee has only met twice so far, and during the first meeting, many students simply bounced around ideas. The second meeting was where every representative from each school across the district sat down and the committee started to solidify some plans to bring up to the county board, as well as BCPS Superintendent Robert Runcie.
As of Wednesday April 22, 2020 Broward County Public Schools has announced that the graduation for the class of 2020 will now be a virtual graduation. This will include the seniors to receive their cords, medallions, and stoles.
