Commentary: An open letter to the school board seeking permission for Harbor seniors to attend commencement

By Riley DeCinces

May 22, 2020 12:37 PM PT

We wanted to take this opportunity to reach out and explain our side of this debacle in a way that can help you understand the difficulties that we as seniors have been going through. We are not choosing to send this letter to express anger or frustration, but rather to illustrate in words what is on all of our hearts and minds.

For the past few months, our city, country and the entire world has been put on halt to socially distance citizens and protect them from this dangerous, and in many cases deadly, virus.

We have all joined together as a community in order to continue our education while still maintaining distanced guidelines and a positive attitude. Every single member in our community understands the magnitude of this virus, a fact that has heavily contributed to the decline in the amount of new cases every day.

To put it plainly, we seniors are devastated during these times. Our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected either directly or adjacently and it is important that we consider this as we bring these comments to your attention.

With all of this being said, we seniors still have a few concerns and ideas that we would like to bring up.

Our main concern involves the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. We understand that it is important to stay safe during these times, however, we are struggling to see our concerns being acknowledged.

With the voicemail boxes of the district being full and the numbers being changed, it is near impossible for us to be heard. We want them to take into consideration that we seniors have worked for four years, if not more, in order to be able to close the door on this chapter of our lives while still feeling a sense of closure and pride.

When I say that we are saddened by the district’s choice to cancel an in-person graduation altogether, I believe that I am speaking for all high school and college seniors across the nation.

Because of this, we would like to propose some alternative routes to go about the situation at hand. We understand and acknowledge that nothing about this time is normal, and we hope that these suggestions are able to open your eyes to new ideas that would be safe as well as would offer closure to the senior class.

After long discussions, we feel that a socially distanced graduation ceremony should not be out of the picture. With about a month until the date of our original graduation, we find it frustrating that any and all alternative ceremonies have been shut down.

This proposed ceremony would involve chairs on the field, moved 6 feet apart, of course, and no family members or spectators in the stands.

We don’t feel that this is asking too much due to the fact that we have lost our prom, grad night and so many other milestones that we were supposed to experience.

This proposed idea could even involve every student providing their own chair; we would all be willing to make these accommodations in order to have a ceremony of this sort. We need no hand-shaking, no hugging and no spectators.

We want this not because we want to show our parents that we made it, but rather because we want to sit on Davidson Field and be able to experience the feeling of closure that comes with a graduation ceremony run by Principal Sean Boulton himself. We know that every school in our district must have the same guidelines for graduation and we all feel that this is feasible for each of the high schools in our area.

To close, we would like to reiterate our understanding that you are trying hard to make the best decision for our community and students. We understand that you have experienced a number of angry parents breathing down your necks, but we only hope for the opportunity to be acknowledged and heard.

Coming directly from senior students, we sincerely hope that you can take all of these concerns and reconsider the decision that has already been made. We are encouraged knowing the credentials of those sitting on our school board, and we hope that they can use their knowledge and understanding to allow us to experience an in-person graduation while still staying safe and responsible.

The writer is a member of the 2020 senior class at Newport Harbor High School.

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Commentary: An open letter to the school board seeking permission for Harbor seniors to attend commencement

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