BELLVILLE — Clear Fork High School Principal Brian Brown understands better than most how difficult these past few months have been.
Tough times not just for graduating seniors, but for their parents, as well.
Brown’s son, Alex, is a member of Clear Fork’s Class of 2020.
Seniors all across the country are being forced to sacrifice some of the seminal moments of their young lives because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Proms, concerts, awards ceremonies and traditional graduations have been scrapped in an effort to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Those losses are felt by moms and dads, too.
“As an administrator and as a parent of a graduating senior, it’s been tough,” Brian Brown said. “For the most part, Alex has handled this pretty well. It took some processing, but eventually he got to the point where he realizes this is just a minor roadblock.”
Clear Fork will honor its graduating seniors with a modified graduation ceremony on May 31. Like several other Richland County schools, Clear Fork will have a drive-in ceremony in the high school parking lot beginning at 10 a.m.
“I thinks we’ve got a pretty good plan. It allows the kids to still be together, albeit not in the way, shape or form that they had hoped,” Brown said.
“We’re still going to have the (class) president give his speech and recognize award-winners. We won’t be bringing them up on stage, but parents will be able to hear their child’s name called.”
When it comes time to receive diplomas, students will be summoned from their vehicles in small groups. Each student will walk across an empty stage and pick up their diploma.
“We’ll have them in groups of five and we’ll have everything timed out to maintain social distancing,” Brown said. “We’ll say their name and they will come pick up their diploma and face the parking lot to be recognized, then we’ll move on.”
Mansfield television station WMFD will simulcast the ceremony on its Facebook page. Brown said he also hopes to have a FM radio transmitter set up so those attending the ceremony can tune in.
“Like every other school district, we know this isn’t perfect but we want to do our best to honor the graduating seniors,” Brown said. “We’re trying to put a positive spin on this the best we can.
“Actually I think the students and the community have handled this much better than I have. This is one of our smaller graduating classes, but they are very innovative. It’s appropriate that this is the Class of 2020. They will go into the future with a new vision,” the principal said.
