'We still did it' Palmer High seniors, staff prepare for virtual graduation

PALMER — Last Friday, Palmer High School students and principal Paul Reid filed into the Mat-Su School District Office Building to film their portions of the virtual graduation ceremony that will be broadcasted for each high school across the MSBSD at the time their ceremony would have been. Without the ability to gather and watch each of the more than 1,200 graduates district-wide walk across the stage, students and staff are making do the best they can.

As a principal, Reid says that graduation night is a relief seeing his students walk across the stage and take their diploma. After arriving at the school district office before 8 a.m. in a suit with his speech in hand, Reid said that the notion that his portion of the graduation ceremony was over by 9 a.m. felt surreal to him.

“We have such a strong tradition at PHS and at graduation, people come out of the woodworks for it and it’s a big family community event and there’s no way that you could recreate that safely at this point,” said Reid. “We’ve gone this far and it’s kid of all for naught if we don’t continue to follow the same standards and practices that are going to help people be safe.”

As MSBSD students headed for spring break, senior Isabelle Bailey traveled to Flagstaff, Arizona, to visit Northern Arizona University where she plans to attend school next fall. After returning from spring break to discover the changing health mandates in response to the spread of COVID-19 across Alaska including the closure of on-campus school instruction for the remainder of the year, Bailey says that school feels very optional to her. Without a graduation ceremony to celebrate the seniors’ accomplishments of completing their secondary education, Bailey feels like this year’s senior class deserves a break.

“I am planning on moving across country to do something I’ve never done before to live in a completely different place. More than just it being a school opportunity, it was a whole new life for me,” said Bailey. “I am very ready to take that next step and I hope I get to.”

Reid said that Palmer High seniors were offered over $6 million in scholarships this year, much of which is directed at the International Baccalaureate students. Testing has been modified for both Advanced Placement and IB courses, allowing for students to be graded on work already submitted and rated for their IB test by teachers, something Reid says is already build into the system.

Not only are the students missing the opportunity to learn in a classroom setting, but experience the feeling of spring semester of senior year.

“Emotionally it’s like we’ve been dreaming, you know and sleeping and we just slept through graduation, senior skip day, prom and spring sports and it’s like we’re awake now but that you know none of that ever happened,” said Maria Beck.

Beck has been swimming for over a decade and will be a collegiate swimmer at College of St. Benedict, when she gets to go. With pools closed, training has become completely different as Beck has to run to keep up her fitness where she has been accustomed to working out in the water. Beck estimates that this is the first time she has spent more than a month out of the pool since she started swimming, and is worried about her collegiate athletic career as well as how colleges will recognized the modified AP and IB course testing this spring, both of which are classes Beck is enrolled in.

Beck feels that the unforeseen circumstances of COVID-19 closing Alaska’s schools should not invalidate the work she put during her high school career.

“Those kids that are seniors that have put a lot of hard work in, they’re going to be rewarded for it because we know that an IB diploma gets you multiple opportunities for scholarships in schools across the country and internationally as well,” said Reid.

Along with Beck, senior Manny Lovejoy did not get to complete his high school basketball career that had already begun or start the season for high school soccer, where Palmer returned as region champions. Sports have also been canceled, and Reid says the loss of spring sports has had a huge impact.

‘Extra duty’

“Attending all those [sporting] events are extra duty for us, but could you ask for a better duty?” said Reid.

Reid did note the unintended positive consequences of hosting a virtual graduation rather than trying to pack hundreds of people into a dark, crowded Palmer gymnasium where graduation speeches must be played over the gym speakers. Reid believes that without an echoey gym, students and families watching graduations will be able to hear more of the speeches prepared by students and staff for the virtual graduation ceremony.

“The folks I feel for the most are the seniors that are never going to get it back,” said Reid. “I just hope people understand that everybody involved still put the same heart into it.”

Reid praised his staff for their quick organization in communicating with the students what their needs were for distance learning. Reid said that a survey was sent out to parents that came back with overwhelmingly positive results and feedback. Reid says that the class of 2020 will be unique because no PHS class before them has suffered through a global pandemic and he hopes no classes after 2020 will have to remain distanced for their graduation.

“The message is the same as it’s always been. It’s like, we did it. We have done this. We completed it. We struggled and we worked and we got where we are through hard work and dedication and not having that graduation ceremony, it’s the loss of like a tangible experience that you can keep with you and it’s the loss of the actual acknowledgement that you did it but it doesn’t change the fact that we did it,” said Bailey.

After giving their speeches to a room full of camera equipment instead of their classmates and friends, graduates took time to thank people that helped them along the way. Beck thanked her mother and father for keeping her sane and also keeping her home during the last month. Bailey thanked her music teacher Barbara Carroll and her counselor Sharon Johnson. Lovejoy thanked counselor JoLene Grover, his music teacher and his father.

“He has definitely helped me become a man that I didn’t know that I could be and just pushing me academically, physically and you know for sports and for scholarships,” said Lovejoy. “I didn’t think that singing would be something that I’d be doing any more, but she pushed me, she encouraged me. She’s like you know you still got it. She heard something that I didn’t hear.”