Why is this KC school holding graduation indoors when COVID-19 moves most outside?
Back in May, high schools across the Kansas City metro postponed graduations to July, thinking the coronavirus pandemic might ebb enough for them to hold traditional ceremonies — many at indoor arenas.
Now that July has arrived and COVID-19 is still raging, one by one, schools are moving their events to outdoor venues — or online only.
But not Rockhurst High School. It will hold a traditional in-person ceremony inside Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium on July 25.
“Rockhurst High School has decided that with appropriate measures, including a multi-page ‘safety plan’ on which we are working with Municipal Auditorium, we feel as though we can still have a reasonably safe graduation that will approach only 20% of occupancy of Municipal, with socially distanced pods,” said Robbie Haden, spokesman for the all-boys Roman Catholic school in south Kansas City.
In addition to everyone being required to wear a mask, all 247 graduates and their guests are being asked to take their temperature before the event and to stay home if it’s 100.4 degrees or higher. The school hired a crowd management group and will have emergency medical technicians on site. Graduates and family groups will sit at least six feet apart. The procession will be single file, and no hand shaking is allowed.
While most Kansas side high schools were planning outdoor ceremonies this month, many in Missouri were like Rockhurst, still hoping to stay in their usual venues: Municipal Auditorium downtown, for example, or Cable Dahmer Arena (formerly Silverstein Eye Centers Arena) in Independence.
But a recent spike in COVID-19 cases in the Kansas City area changed most of those plans. School officials worried that bringing hundreds of graduates and their families together indoors may be too dangerous, so they found outdoor venues, which health officials have said are safer, including Starlight Theatre, Sporting Kansas City’s Children’s Mercy Park or the schools’ own stadiums.
Earlier this month, the Blue Springs school district decided to move its commencement from Municipal to the soccer stadium in Wyandotte County on Saturday.
“Moving the ceremonies to Children’s Mercy Park allows the entire graduating class to participate in commencement together,” said Katie Woolf, district spokeswoman. “If we hosted graduation at Municipal Auditorium this year, we would have needed to host two to three ceremonies per school.”
Park Hill and Independence school districts made the same move.
Carlos Llamas, a Blue Springs High School graduate who has played soccer just about his whole life, is pretty happy about it.
“We will be right on the soccer field, so it’s definitely going to be very different,” said Llamas, who will play soccer for Webster University in St. Louis, where he will study psychology in the fall. “Obviously I would have liked to have had our graduation at Municipal Auditorium because that’s where my sister graduated from and where it has always been. But like most of my friends I’m pretty excited about it being at Children’s Mercy because we get to invite more than two people.” Each student will get six tickets for family and friends.
“I definitely was not looking forward to it possibly having to have a virtual graduation, online. Yeah, I’m happy.”
The Hickman Mills school district had hoped for a traditional in-person ceremony at Cable Dahmer Arena.
Arena officials said they had postponed May graduations to July, “but then the county and city told us no,” said Larry Hovick, the arena’s general manager. So now Hickman Mills is hosting a drive-thru graduation July 27 at Ruskin High School, said Marissa Cleaver Wamble, district spokeswoman.
Graduates, in cap and gown — one graduate per vehicle, one vehicle per graduate — will circle the school to get their diplomas. Decorating the car is encouraged.
“We empathize with our graduates and their families in their disappointment about not being able to host a large in-person event,” a district letter to parents said. “However, we hope you will trust that we want to do all that we can to celebrate our graduates, within the city’s guidelines and with your safety at the forefront of our decision making.”
All four area Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, “to make sure that everyone is safe and can social distance will hold graduations out on to their football fields,” said Vincent Cascone, superintendent of schools. “I don’t think any of our schools even considered holding graduation indoors this year.”
But in Lee’s Summit in June, St. Michael the Archangel Catholic High School held its graduation inside St. John Francis Regis Church.
In Johnson County, Olathe and Blue Valley schools are planning ceremonies at their districts’ outdoor facilities, with social distancing and masks required.
But last week, Shawnee Mission abruptly canceled in-person ceremonies that were scheduled for this week because officials said the risk of COVID-19 transmission would be too high. They opted for virtual ceremonies instead. Shawnee Mission East High School parents ended up renting out the Boulevard Drive-In Theater for a socially distanced unofficial graduation Tuesday evening. That’s where the Kansas City, Kansas, school district held graduations for all its high schools last month. Some Shawnee Mission South parents organized a drive-by parade.
The North Kansas City district never postponed ceremonies: All schools held virtual graduations in May.
Other graduations this month:
▪ Raymore-Peculiar High School: July 17 and 18 at the school’s football field. The class will be divided alphabetically for two separate ceremonies.
▪ St. Teresa’s Academy: July 18 at the school’s sports complex.
▪ Bishop Miege High School: July 18 on the school football field.
▪ Bishop Ward High School: July 19 on the school football field.
▪ Saint Thomas Aquinas High School: July 23 on the school football field.
▪ Lee’s Summit, Lee’s Summit North and Lee’s Summit West: July 26 at Children’s Mercy Park.
▪ Raytown High School, Raytown South: July 26 at Starlight Theater.
▪ Center High School: July 28 at Starlight Theater.
▪ Fort Osage High School: July 31 at Children’s Mercy Park.
