Southwest Illinois high schools are preparing for in-person graduation ceremonies

Last year, graduation and commencement were mere months into the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing schools to go virtual with their ceremonies, as Illinois went under a stay at home order.

With in-person learning, steadily increasing local vaccination rates and lower deaths and case numbers, school districts are in a very different place this year to make decisions for end of the year events.

Local commencement and graduation ceremonies will be held in-person this year, albeit with some changes to comply with guidance for large events.

“People have been extremely understanding,” Waterloo High School Principal Lori Costello said. “We’re going to keep it as normal as possible.”

Waterloo’s Commencement ceremony will take place May 23 in the High School Gymnasium, as usual. In other years, Costello said students generally weren’t limited to how many guests they could bring. This year, they’re allowed a maximum of four.

Likewise, Edwardsville High School’s graduation ceremony on May 29 will also be held in its gymnasium with limited seating.

Principal Steve Stuart said they considered safety mitigations such as splitting the graduating class into two separate ceremonies. Ultimately, it was decided to host one ceremony. Each student will be granted two tickets, and the district will stream the ceremony.

Other high schools — including Belleville East and West and O’Fallon Township High School — are splitting their graduating classes alphabetically and hold ceremonies in three or four shifts at each school to limit capacity.

Granite City High School was one of the few local districts to have an in-person graduation last year. But Principal Daren DePew said the indoor walk-through ceremony didn’t allow the class of 2020 to celebrate together.

This year, the class of 2021 will graduate together — but with social distancing — on May 28 on the football field.

“I think it’s more memorable for the kids (if they’re together),” DePew said. “We’re excited to have the opportunity to do that. We’re doing our best to stay within the mitigations and keep everyone safe.”

There will be a limited number of spectators, but DePew said they won’t know how many tickets will be allotted to graduates until the know how many students are participating.

The East St. Louis District 189 school board voted Tuesday night to approve an extended school year that will wrap up at the end of June, pushing the graduation ceremony to July 1.

Seniors meeting the graduation requirements without the extension will have an earlier ceremony in May. The specific date is still to be determined. The district said in an email that it intends to host the ceremony at Clyde C. Jordan Stadium, with a limited number of guests for each student.

Younger students also will have the chance to celebrate.

Whiteside Middle School will be hosting a drive-thru graduation ceremony for its eighth graders, similar to what the district did last year. Cars will be staged in the parking lot with the family watching.

“We talked to our Board of Education, and we weighed both options of in-person versus drive-thru,” Superintendent Mark Heuring said. “We felt the drive-thru was the safest with COVID, and provided options for the district to personalize it.”