A week ago, it was announced that Iowa schools would not be returning to school for the remainder of the semester. This left many unanswered questions for students, parents and especially the senior class.
The end of the year is the busiest time of year at school. There are spring sports, band concerts, choir concerts, orchestra concerts, senior sports awards night, scholarship awards night, academic night, prom, graduation and more. With the rest of the year cancelled no one is exactly sure what will happen to all of these events.
Out of all of the end of the year events, senior Brady Sexon has especially been looking forward to graduation. “I was mostly looking forward to senior prom and graduation, but mostly graduation… It is something that only happens once in someone’s life and every student deserves to walk across that stage and receive a diploma that they have worked for for 12 years,” he said.
Pleasant Valley’s principal Darren Erickson has been working very hard to find the best ways for students to still have a memorable and enjoyable end of the semester. “As of right now- the main events that have been cancelled and not rescheduled are athletics,” he said.
With many other events still in question, Pleasant Valley is looking at alternative ways to have these events, “Other events, like Scholarship Night, Letter of Intent signings, are being rescheduled to hold virtually…The primary questions we are getting are about Prom and Graduation. Graduation is my biggest focus at this time and we are still looking at all options and putting together ideas for all of them,” Erickson said.
There is also a possibility that these events may be held later on in the summer. However, this can only happen following the CDC guidelines which are unknown for the future months. If some events, like graduation, are held later in the summer and in person Pleasant Valley has already put several safety precautions in place.
“If events are rescheduled for in-person, the precautions will be dictated by CDC guidelines, including number of participants allowed, personal safety equipment requirements (masks, gloves, other?), social distancing and other factors. Whatever we do, our top priority is doing it safely to keep our kids and our community safe,” Erickson stated.
Although there is still some hope that events like graduation will be held in person later in the summer, the senior class is still on edge about the possibility of graduation going virtual.
A virtual graduation is the last thing senior Andrew Doyle wants. “Almost all students would much rather wait until late summer to get a normal graduation rather than a virtual graduation at the normal time. This is a memory that should last a lifetime and we shouldn’t settle for something less,” he expressed.
For now it is impossible to predict exactly what will happen to graduation. This event is Erickson’s favorite event of the year and hopes that he will get to spend a little more time with the senior class, “It is so hard losing this last bit of time with kids and I hope I have the opportunity to say goodbye to all of you as you deserve,” he expressed.
