Due to the spread of COVID-19, Governor Tom Wolf ordered the school  to shut down for the rest of the academic year. This caused students to have many questions and concerns about upcoming events for spring. Spring sports, prom, the musical, graduation projects, the graduation ceremony and Project Graduation are all topics of interest for the students.  

For the most part, the staff and principals have been trying their best not to cancel events but rather postpone them until students would be able to return to the building. In many cases, this would mean events taking place throughout the summer. 

A big topic of discussion among the seniors was plans for prom and graduation. Prom was originally planned to take place on May 8 but this is no longer the case. A new plan has been developed due to the closure. This current plan is to have the prom on July 31 at the same hotel summer as long as the shutdown is over. 

Graduation projects have been modified to accommodate this new change. Instead of 20 community service hours, students are expected to now accomplish five hours. For the project, students were also required to do job shadows; however, this is now hard to accomplish. These job shadows are no longer required, but students now have to complete interviews with people in the career they want to go into through phone calls or emails. 

Along with those requirements, seniors will also still be required to submit their portfolios. They will do this electronically or they can drop them off at the high school on May 15. Along with the seniors dropping off their portfolios, the school will take cap and gown orders as well as being able to get their letter that they wrote freshman year.  The students will also still have to present their projects to a randomly selected panel of high school and middle school teachers. These presentations will be done through a Google Hangout meeting. Times for each student will be declared at a later date. 

The graduation ceremony was planned to be held on June 5. The idea of the normal graduation ceremony is still very much up in the air, and the principals are working out how to do the ceremony. This can mean many things though. The idea of a virtual ceremony was discussed as well as moving the ceremony to a later date, but no decision has been made on what will happen. Although, plans are in the works to have a graduation parade which would be when seniors would get their diplomas.  

Scheduling for the upcoming school year is fast approaching, but the process will look different. There are a couple options being discussed. One of those options would be to send the scheduling forms to the students home and have them send the forms back. The second option would be to send out the forms electronically and meet with the conculars to discuss the courses. 

Around May of each year, the staff introduces the senior project to the juniors for the next school year. The principles and guidance department walk the juniors through their upcoming project that they will work on throughout their senior year. However, those plans have changed and the project will be introduced electronically. 

  “We will introduce the project through videos that will be posted on the District’s High School Webpage. Any questions students may have will be answered through a Q&A session with the administration after the videos have been posted,” assistant high school principal Steven Mott said.