Because of COVID-19, high school graduations are being disrupted throughout the Pine Belt, and private schools in the Hattiesburg area are working to adapt their ceremonies.
Sacred Heart Catholic School has yet to cancel its graduation for its 41 seniors and is still trying to find a solution that can include its tradition of including the bishop from the Diocese of Biloxi.
“The Biloxi Diocese is trying to work out the graduation day on May 16,” Assistant Principal Joe Falla Jr. said. “We would like to do an empty chapel graduation with the bishop, but I think that was put on hold until we can come up with a better solution.”
According to Falla, multiple ideas have been passed around, and it seems likely that graduation will be pushed back into the summer months.
“We have thought about letting them walk across the stage one at a time and then put together a movie and possibly scoop it all together,” Falla said. “We are still trying to figure it out. We were hoping that they would loosen the restrictions a little. We'll probably be pushing it back. That would be the safe bet right now.
“As of right now, we really don't have anything hammered out in stone. (There are) still unanswered questions.”
Like Sacred Heart, Presbyterian Christian School, which has a class of 63, is currently trying to find a possible solution and is assessing the situation each week as restrictions change.
“We are really waiting to see how it evolves the next couple of weeks,” Headmaster Allen Smithers said. “We are going to have a graduation. It will probably not be in the gym like it normally would just because we don't think it'll open up that quickly. We really don't know what it's going to look like, but we are shooting to have one.
“If things loosen up to where we can have it sooner or later, then we will do that. We told people that we would give them a two-week notice just to make sure that they have their plans in order and make sure the child can be there.”
Smithers said that while PCS may push its actual graduation back to June, the school still intends to honor students on the original graduation date of May 15.
“We do have a planned event set for May 15,” Smithers said. “We are going to do something that night or late that afternoon just to have some kind of special event, but it will not be a graduation. Right now, we are just trying to plan an event that would be in accordance with what would be within the restrictions and guidance at that particular point.”
As of now, Lamar Christian School, which has a graduating class of 12, intends to have its graduation on May 16.
According to Principal Allen Stevens, the school plans to hold its graduation in a parking lot with guests staying in their cars and students being spread out on a stage.
“We are planning to do graduation in the cars,” Stevens said. “(Guests) will just stay in their cars, and (we will) get a transmitter and transmit it through that and recognize the seniors. The seniors would be outside. We would just try and recognize them as close as we can to what we normally do. If things change, then we would love to be able to go into the building.”
However, Stevens said that ongoing changes due to the pandemic could still alter the school's graduation plans.
“Things are changing rapidly, and sometimes they change within the hour," Stevens said. “We want to do the best we can for these seniors under the circumstances. That's our view of it. We are hoping that's going to change between now and then. We just have to look at it and see, and we may and may not be able to do it. We'll just see what the governor says on the next round.”
