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06/30/2020 12:00 AMThe East Haven High School Class of 2020 will have its moment in the sun. A modified graduation ceremony will be held starting at 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 11 on the grounds of the high school.
After the COVID pandemic prevented the school’s traditional ceremony from occurring in June, followed by frequently changing state guidance on public gatherings, the school determined a July ceremony would allow for some of the most important parts of an in-person graduation, including crossing the stage to receive a diploma, even if not in front of the massive audience that traditionally fill Crisafi Field for commencement.
The graduation will start at 8 a.m. with speeches, and then students arriving for the ceremony at 9 a.m. Each student will be given a designated time to arrive at the school.
Principal Vincent DeNuzzo said the graduation will have staggered waves of arrival according to alphabetic order and each wave will be spaced about 45 minutes apart. DeNuzzo said it’s difficult to know, but he anticipated the event will last until about 1 p.m. until all 220 students graduate.
The entire event will be recorded and livestreamed for family and friends who can’t be in attendance. Additionally, speeches from the class president, valedictorian, salutatorian, school and district personnel, as well as town officials will be recorded and then put into footage of each student crossing the stage so that the entire ceremony can be viewed together.
The livestream will be on the district’s YouTube channel and the entire ceremony will be made available for download.
The fact that the students can still make their speeches—and still do it at the high school—is something of which DeNuzzo is proud.
“It’s an important moment for these kids and I didn’t want them to have to record it on their back deck,” said DeNuzzo.
DeNuzzo said that more specific details and instructions, such as designated time for arrival, traffic flow, etc., will be provided in the coming days and weeks.
The 2019-’20 school year has been a difficult and strange one. Students haven’t been in the building since the COVID-19 outbreak hit the region. Staples of high school life such as sports, prom, and just simply being in school with classmates were all canceled.
DeNuzzo acknowledged that holding a ceremony this way is not something anybody wanted, and the district explored other options.
“One of the reasons we’re having it over the summer [was that] we were waiting to see if things would change,” said DeNuzzo.
One idea the district mulled was splitting the class in half and having two different ceremonies with people spaced six feet apart. However, DeNuzzo said that upon seeking advice from the local area health district, that plan was nixed in favor of the drive-through type of graduation that other towns along the shoreline have been using.
In a statement, the East Shore District Health Department said, “As the local director of public health for the Town of East Haven, our office strongly advises the best option for high school graduation for our community at this time would be a virtual/drive-thru ceremony. While I understand this is a very difficult decision and acknowledge this is a special ‘once in a lifetime’ moment for your high school seniors and their families/friends, as a community, this option best prevents the spread of this infectious virus among all populations and safeguards all of our residents.”
DeNuzzo said he believes that attendees will be “pleasantly surprised” by the graduation ceremony and that “we wanted to make it as traditional a graduation as possible.”
“There was never any discussion that we weren’t going to be able to do it,” sad DeNuzzo.