Local high school to hold up to 11 separate graduations to accommodate social distancing

While the coronavirus pandemic has stripped many students of their senior year memories, Marlboro High School developed a unique plan to spare graduation, giving seniors the chance to walk across the stage and receive their diplomas next month. 

District administrators plan to host a series of socially-distant mini graduation ceremonies at the Noble Field behind Whitcomb Middle School on June 6 and 7, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., to celebrate the Class of 2020. Rain dates have also been scheduled for June 13 and 14.

After talking with student leaders about what they’re going through and how they hope to retain some sense of tradition as they close their year, Principal Dan Riley said he decided to move forward with the plan.

“It was really a team effort,” Riley said as he announced the details during the town’s May 12 School Committee meeting.

Twenty-two students from the graduating class of 250 will participate in each ceremony, and each student will be allowed to bring up to six family members. 

Riley said families will be seated together, but spaced apart from others, adding that several volunteers will help streamline this process from the moment a family arrives in the parking lot.

Seniors will also be able to submit the names of up to three students that they would like to graduate with.

“This was a request directly from my senior leaders,” Riley said. “To help them coordinate with some of their closest friends that they’ve spent the last four years with at Marlboro High School that they would like to graduate with.” 

All participants will be required to bring and wear their own mask, he said, noting that with face coverings in short supply, the city won’t be able to provide one for everyone. 

“While we are still working hard to have masks on standby, we do not want to have to ask someone not to come into the stadium because they don’t have a mask,” he said. 

Hoping to prevent the usual crowds of loved ones clamoring near the stage for photos, Superintendent Michael Bergeron said the school will hire professional photographers to capture students as they receive their diplomas. Those photos will then be uploaded to the school website for families to download, he said. 

“The one thing that we just can’t have is we can’t have a cluster of folks getting together at the front of the stadium taking pictures together,” Bergeron said during the virtual meeting. 

Administrators are currently working on a plan to videotape the ceremonies, and Riley said additional photo opportunities will be set up, too — one atop a podium in front of the M painted in the middle of the athletic field, and another in front of the panther statue at the field’s entrance.

While Bergeron believes this graduation plan is safe, he said it won’t work unless everyone follows the school’s directions and guidelines. 

“We do need to have tight control over the number of people who show up to the event, so if folks do show up to the event and they’re not part of the six family members,” he said, “then we are gonna have to deny admittance. And we also do not want the public crowding the facility on any of the fence lines.”

The district said they will be making alternative graduation arrangements for students who chose to opt out of the ceremony due to safety. 

“Obviously graduation is very important to all of our students who are walking across that stage. We see it as a rite of adulthood for our young men and young women in the community, and we obviously want to respect that and we want to respect the work that these students have put in for the past 12 years in their academic careers,” Bergeron said. “We also recognize that our job is to protect public safety as well.”

And as June inches closer, he said this plan will balance safety with commemorating their seniors. 

“We understand that it may not be like we usually do it,” Bergeron said, “but we’re trying to provide something.”

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