To Families of the Class of 2020
May 2, 2020
Dear Families of the Class of 2020,
We know that this pandemic has been a challenge to many people, but few feel the impact of it as deeply as our graduating class and their families. Recently we learned that school buildings would not re-open this school year, and even more recently, we learned that the stay at home orders and social distancing regulations would be extended until at least May 18th. Students and schools across the country are faced with finding ways to appropriately honor the graduating Class of 2020 in the face of this unusual global situation.
Many of our students have been Watertown students since Kindergarten, and others have joined the Watertown schools partway into their educational careers. No matter how our students have come to Watertown, they have bonded together to be the incredible Class of 2020 students that we have all come to know, appreciate, and respect. I want to reassure you that we will hold up the Class of 2020 with a great deal of celebration and the honor that befits this wonderful group of young adults.
I have been meeting with the senior class officers, executive board, and the class advisor to discuss ways to honor the seniors and to celebrate graduation. A team will be formed that includes parents and teachers as well in the near future to plan out how and when graduation will take place. We will likely have to flesh out more than one scenario that responds to the regulations in place at the time of the ceremony. I have asked the PTSO president to reach out and solicit the parent volunteers for this committee. This team will also create avenues for input from other families of graduating seniors, as we develop and examine options.
In the meantime, we have been doing the planning for many other things to ensure we celebrate the Class of 2020, as they deserve. Some of them were intended to have an element of surprise for the students, but in order to reassure you all of the work taking place, I prefer to risk sacrificing the element of surprise for the fuller communications with you all.
CLASS OFFICIALS:
Valedictorian – David Abrahamyan
Salutatorian – Elias Cherry – German
Class President – Mia Zarkadas
CLASS LAWN SIGNS
These celebration signs have been designed, ordered and are ready for distribution. These will be placed in students’ front yards early this week. The goal is to place them on May 5th, and it appears that the weather will be cooperating.
I am letting parents know about this in advance so that you will not be startled by a person in your front yard on May 5th! I am also informing the WPD. For student privacy reasons, we will give the volunteers the addresses for the signs, but not the student name associated with that address. Parents, if you would put something red and black or a WHS sign/symbol in your front window it will help the volunteers to know they have the correct address. The PTSO will arrange to take pictures during the distribution. As a follow-up, the PTSO will be asking parents to take a picture of their students beside their lawn sign, for posting in a slide show.
CONGRATULATIONS SIGNS
School administrators are posting congratulations signage at all 5 schools & the Phillips Building. This should begin happening this week.
o in school windows
o on school marquis signs
o extra lawn signs at the high school
The PTSO is also reaching out to the community for community congratulatory signage in common areas around town.
The Superintendent is procuring red solo cups to pop in the perimeter fencing at Victory, spelling out “Congratulations Class of 2020”.
COUNTDOWN DAYS
Some of the students are investigating the creation of ‘countdown to last day’ posters to display on the Class of 2020 Facebook page and school website (to replace the countdown wall in the tri-area that they would usually have done). The last day of remote learning for seniors will be May 28th, as was originally planned for the last day of classes had we been in school.
ANNUAL SENIOR SLIDESHOW
The Class Officers & the Class Executive Board are currently collecting pictures to prepare this traditional annual video. They have messaged this out to their class, and I have included it in the Principal’s Weekly Newsletter.
YEARBOOKS
We arranged to have these mailed to each student’s house, instead of being distributed at school, so you should expect those in your mailboxes in the next weeks. A yearbook-signing event will be arranged after the need for social distancing has passed. This could take place at a future class social event.
SENIOR WEEK
This typically includes Prom, BBQ & the Kimball’s Outing during the week between the last day of classes and graduation. Seniors will plan at least one big future social event for the Class of 2020 to be held after the need for social distancing has passed, and at a time that most of the graduates would typically be in Watertown. The students want to invite the teachers to attend this as well.
AWARDS CEREMONIES
The plan is to combine Athletic/Academic/Scholarship Awards into one big virtual ceremony. Ryan Murphy and Shirley Lundberg will co-host the video. Department Coordinators will virtually present their department awards as part of the ceremony. Commemorative Awards booklets will be printed and sent to the Class of 2020 families, naming each award recipient.
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Community Service Requirements have been relaxed for the senior class. Virtual opportunities for Community Service are published in the student daily announcements and in the Principals’ Weekly Newsletter. The following was communicated through their Class of 2020 Google Classroom:
Dear Class of 2020,
I hope this email finds you well. We understand it may be difficult for you to complete all of your community service hours during this school closure and stay at home order. For students in the class of 2020, the following adjustments to the community service requirements have been made:
Students with 28-35 hours: need to reach 36
Students with 19-26 hours: need to reach 27
Students with 10-17 hours: need to reach 18
Students with 0-8 hours: need to reach 9
There are a number of opportunities to do virtual service at the moment including recording videos of yourself reading books to students (see information from the Class of 2022; 2 books (separate videos) = 1 hour), helping senior citizens with technology (see Morning Announcements), or letter writing to senior citizens, health care workers, first responders, etc. (4 letters = 1 hour). For each of these service opportunities, you will need to send Mrs. Hoffman a photo of your work (so, photos of each letter or links to your videos) in order for the hour to count.
We thank you for your patience as we've worked through this plan.
Shirley Lundberg, Principal
Brian Brewer, Dean of Students
Annmarie Boudreau, Assistant Principal
Sandra Hoffman, Community Service Coordinator
SESSIONS
The Class of 2020’s outstanding sessions have been forgiven.
CAPS AND GOWNS
We are working out a plan to distribute the caps and gowns. They should be received from the company in the next couple of weeks. We are considering combining the Cap & Gown distribution with the return of textbooks, Chromebooks, etc., so students should start to inventory the school materials that they will need to return.
The PTSO is looking into preparing swag bags for students to be distributed with the caps and gowns
OTHER PRE-GRADUATION EVENTS
We are investigating the possibility of a car parade of students in caps and gowns through a predetermined route around town (we would need WPD and WFD support) on June 5th or 6th which would have been the weekend of graduation. We are in the initial phase of this investigation and will consider other opportunities to celebrate the Class of 2020 during this special weekend.
GRADUATION CEREMONY
The class officers and executive board sent a survey to their peers and 2/3 of the class (about 100 students) responded. The following themes emerged:
- If there is any way to hold live graduation, then that is their strong preference
- No matter the form of graduation, they asked that it be held in the near future. The survey results indicated a significant drop off in the number of students who replied that they would or could attend graduation after students have left for college/career/military due to the differing schedules as to when students might next be back in Watertown
We will be reaching out to local government agencies, to find out if we would be allowed a gathering at Victory Field between now and August, how many people would be allowed, and under what conditions or restrictions we would have to operate. This is key information to help us to envision a live graduation ceremony in that time frame. We hope to get that information relatively soon so that we will have some of the basic parameters defined in order for some actual planning and the shaping of graduation can begin to take place.
TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO THE CLASS OF 2020 AS KEEPSAKES
· Yearbook
· Awards Ceremony Video
· Awards from the Ceremony
· Awards Ceremony Booklet naming Award Recipients
· Annual Class Video
· Graduation Video
· Swag Bag from PTSO
I thank you for sharing your students, the amazing Class of 2020, with us. Please feel free to share with me other ideas that you may have for celebrating these wonderful students and we will see what we can do to incorporate them!
Sincerely,
Shirley Lundberg, Principal