From “congratulations” signs planted in front yards, to high schools lighting up their stadiums, to teachers making music videos or radio programs airing shoutouts, communities are trying to show the Class of 2020 that they should be celebrated, even though there may be a lack of in-person festivities due to school closures and social distancing guidelines.

With just 68 seniors at Sedona Red Rock High School, the school was able to make special arrangements in order to give them a graduation ceremony somewhere between real and virtual.

“Our vision is that we would decorate the Sedona Performing Arts Center just like a normal graduation,” SRRHS Principal Dennis Dearden said during the school board’s April meeting, which took place over Zoom. “We’ll have our students walk across the stage and behind them on the big screen will be their name, some of their recognitions — we might even have them do a 30-second type of speech.”

To ensure safe distancing, the graduates scheduled times between May 1 and 11 to come in one at a time to be recorded walking across the stage and receive their diplomas.

Thanks to a $2,500 donation from the Sedona Community Foundation, the school was able to hire a videographer. The individual clips of the seniors will be spliced together to create what looks like a cohesive virtual graduation, which will then be streamed online for seniors and their families to watch together on Wednesday, May 20 — the same day the school would have held its normal graduation.

“Though physically separate, we want to be spiritually and supportively together at this significant time in your lives,” Dearden wrote in an email to seniors explaining the graduation plan. “We value your achievement and are committed to honoring your years of hard work. We are excited to be able to maintain tradition, altered for the circumstance, including speeches, shared messages, and likely a few surprises to express our appreciation and congratulation.”

While the school’s efforts have been applauded, many seniors still feel a sense of loss about not being able to experience the right of passage traditionally.

“I know the school’s trying but a virtual ceremony isn’t the same,” SRRHS senior Tabitha Caetano said. “I feel like the real graduation ceremony is the final goodbye, and you have everyone there and their families too …. It’s one of those big moments before everyone takes their different paths and you might not get to see them again.”

Tabitha’s father, John Caetano, said he had been thinking about his daughter’s graduation ever since she was a child.

“It’s one of those things [you think about] as a parent when you see your little girl, especially because she’s done so well in school,” Caetano said of Tabitha, who received scholarships to Northern Arizona University due to her good grades through the years. “As a parent, she’s so happy to achieve a milestone. You just want your child to have that experience.”

Caetano said he is planning on cooking a grand dinner for his daughter and hopes she can properly celebrate with her classmates when safety allows, even if that means having a picnic and dance when the seniors are college freshmen.

When school was first canceled, Tabitha said the extended spring break sounded ideal, but as time went on, that attitude changed.

“Everyone says, ‘Oh yay, no school’ and whatever. But when it actually happens, when you don’t have a choice, it really sucks,” she said. “It’s like you keep getting your feet swept out from under you and you can’t get back up.”

Tabitha said she was also looking forward to prom and other end-of-year activities like Senior Skip Day.

“I think it’s a challenge all seniors are facing because it’s like going to school for 12 years to not get to enjoy the last best three months,” she said.

Another SRRHS senior, Alexandra Mertes, expressed that she was most disappointed to not be able to do a senior prank, participate in the spring play and attend the comic expo to display her art, which she worked hard to fundraise for with the school’s Pop Culture Club.

As for graduation, Mertes said that while she’s not exactly “a big ceremonial” type of person, she knew her parents were looking forward to seeing her receive her diploma in person.

“Whether it was the senior banquet or breakfast, these were things that we were starting to understand meant that this part of our life was ending, and the graduation itself was a culmination of that,” her father, Steve Mertes, recalled of his own senior days. “All these things are making the seniors feel special, and they don’t get that.”

The Mertes family had been planning and saving up for a mid-June congratulatory Caribbean cruise for months before the quarantine hit.

With that not happening anytime in the near future, Alexandra’s next big event to look forward to is starting at Yavapai College in August, where she will be studying screenwriting. But there is a chance that even by then, the college could still be doing online-only classes.

“I feel like I need to feel what it’s going to be like and [if we started online-only], that’s not a real introduction to college,” she said.

“Especially if she has to go online at Yavapai, it’s kind of hard to see the delineation between high school and college,” Steve added.

Yavapai College will also have a virtual ceremony, complete with photos and videos, for its 1,470 graduates at all campuses on Saturday, May 9.

Verde Valley School Director of Advancement Donita Coburn-Amadio said that the Village of Oak Creek boarding school usually offers a number of activities for their seniors in an effort to make them feel special before their send-off, including individual speeches, a scavenger hunt for class rings, special breakfasts and dinners, teas and barbecues, a fire ceremony, awards and more.

“The year ends with a toast to our seniors,a fun faculty talent show, a showcase
of projects, a formal baccalaureate ceremony and a Verde Valley School commencement that will be remembered forever,” Coburn-Amadio said. “Our hearts are aching for these seniors as they grieve the loss of their last semester together, celebrating here on campus with one another, but we know that they are well prepared to see beyond their disappointment and privilege of having been here to the greater purpose of their time here.”

VVS students did not return to campus when schools closed after spring break. Instead,
they started online classes, and will also have an online graduation ceremony.

“VVS is sending care packages to each of our students that will allow everyone to participate virtually from wherever they are,” Coburn-Amadio said. “The packages include all kinds of fun, familiar and wonderful things, most especially a handwritten note from each student’s advisor.”

At Sedona Charter School, 13 eighth graders, many who had spent years watching the fanfare of older students graduating, have had to come to terms that their primary school ceremony will be much different.

“In previous years, at 10 a.m. on the last day of school, the eighth graders enter the performance arts building, often dressed up, and walk to the front row seats to music,” Jacki Rice, the middle school’s principal educator, said. “The teachers speak. Different students perform. Each graduate gives a speech. … The first-graders then go on stage one by one and give a rose and hug to each eighth grader, as a farewell and best wishes.”

With this year’s graduating class going in all different directions in fall — four to SRRHS, two to VVS, two moving and others undecided or waiting to hear back on acceptance — a virtual ceremony means the students really might not have the opportunity to say goodbye in person.

“Our graduation committee consisted of eighth-grade students and two teachers. The group met to brainstorm and create the ceremony,” Rice said. “They decided to make Flipgrid videos [an online video program] to show in a Zoom ceremony, rather than live speeches on Zoom because of the challenges many faced with having the space and assured quiet at home to
broadcast from.”

Rice and two teachers will record speeches, while students can also record speeches and perform music and poetry if they wish.

“Many students have been very upset by this change of events …. There is deep sadness and disappointment,” Rice said. “Some of them have been at SCS for eight years and had anticipated the grand ending of a beautiful graduation ceremony that they’ve watched year after year. A couple students act as if they don’t care. I think the situation right now makes it hard for a lot of kids to allow themselves to feel. It can be overwhelming.”