Dare County Schools Superintendent Shares Graduation Plans for 2020
Dare County Schools’ Superintendent, John Farrelly, outlined the county’s graduation plans for 2020 Seniors in an emailed message to students, parents and their families.
Per the update, each graduating senior and their family will be recognized and will receive their diploma in their school auditorium, following social distancing guidelines, between May 26 and June 4.
Audra Krieg Photography will photograph families on stage, and Baldwin Video Productions will be there to take a video for a culminating graduation video(s) that will be released at the scheduled graduation day and time.
All graduation speakers, (such as the Valedictorian, etc.), will be filmed giving their speeches for their school graduation video, and parents will also be able to download free family photos off of the district website beginning on graduation day.
The full message from Superintendent John Farrelly is below.
Good morning Dare County Families,
On behalf of our school principals, the senior leadership team, our high school staff members, and the Board of Education, we offer sincere congratulations to the graduating seniors of the class of 2020.
My heart goes out to all of our graduating seniors and their families who will not be able to enjoy the traditional graduation events and ceremonies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not currently possible to hold traditional graduation ceremonies given federal, state, and local mandates for social distancing. The safety and well-being of our stakeholders are paramount and necessary.
Our high school principals and senior leadership team have given an extraordinary amount of thought and consideration over the past several weeks on how to best move forward with a graduation plan. We have received input from each high school faculty. In addition, we have reviewed the survey responses that we sent out to seniors and their parents last week, where about 40% of our stakeholders participated. Our survey results were not surprising as many students were advocating for holding traditional events while many others offered ideas around a “drive-in” concept with social distancing. Some asked us to consider holding a ceremony much later in the summer and a small number of participants did not feel that we should hold any kind of event. I am very grateful and appreciative of the many detailed and thoughtful responses submitted. We have read them all and considered all options.
I am truly sorry for our seniors but holding a traditional ceremony is not feasible and could be detrimental to public health. We have discussed at length at the concept of holding a ceremony later in the summer but there is no guarantee that social distancing guidelines would change significantly and that option could be problematic with students going off to college, the military, or the workforce. It may also be unmanageable as faculty have other summer commitments, plans, and responsibilities. In arriving at a decision, we focused on what our best option would be given the constraints we are working under. Thus, we have decided to move forward with the following Dare County Schools graduation plan:
- Each graduating senior and their family will be recognized and receive their diploma in their school auditorium following social distancing guidelines between May 26 and June 4. Audra Krieg Photography will photograph families on stage. In addition, Baldwin Video Productions will be there to take a video for a culminating graduation video(s) that will be released at the scheduled graduation day and time. We are very thankful to both Audra Krieg and Benny Baldwin for their support of our seniors and Dare County Schools.
- All graduation speakers (ex. Valedictorian etc.) will be filmed giving their speeches for their school graduation video.
- Parents will be able to download free family photos off of our district website beginning on graduation day.
- Our event schedule for families is as follows:
May 26: Cape Hatteras Secondary School
May 27, 28, 29: Manteo High School
June 1, 2, 3, 4: First Flight High School
- Each school principal has a detailed plan and family schedule that will ensure social distancing and family safety. Principals will be sending this home to all graduating seniors and their parents this Friday, May 15.
- Dare County Schools will release each school’s graduation video on the original graduation dates and times scheduled:
Friday, June 12: First Flight High School at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, June 13: Manteo High School at 9:00 a.m.
Saturday, June 13: Cape Hatteras Secondary School at 7:00 p.m.
Access to the high school graduation events will remain on our website following each release.
In closing, while we are not positioned to have a large group gathering, know that we are so very proud of our seniors and hopeful that families will rally and celebrate each senior over the next several weeks. Congratulations to the class of 2020 who’s spirit of resiliency and courage to overcome obstacles will be the hallmark of this graduating class. Lastly, seniors- please know that we have many teachers, administrators and staff members who love and care about you. Their thoughts have been with our senior class since this pandemic began.
All my best,
John
