Most schools are finding ways to have events like prom and graduation, despite the ongoing pandemic.

By Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

In a few weeks, the 262 graduating seniors at Salem High School will be able to participate in four days of activities that might have seemed unfathomable at the beginning of the school year. It will almost look like a typical senior week, except that almost all activities have been adjusted in some way due to the pandemic. 

“At first everyone wanted things back to normal, but we’re not there yet,” said Tracy Collyer, principal of Salem High School. 

It’s a balance that schools around the Granite State are trying to strike, while navigating the season of proms, graduations and other events for the graduating class. Last year was more clear-cut, with most proms off the table and graduations happening in a limited setting or remotely. This year, however, as the vaccine rollout continues and cases decline, school districts are left to make their own decisions about what they can safely orchestrate — and what the graduating seniors want. 

“This senior class missed junior prom along with many other events. They are a close knit class and have been such troopers through all this. They deserve to end the year with some normalcy,” said Mary Lyons, principal at Portsmouth High School. 

In Salem, senior week will begin on Friday June 4 with the Mr. SHS pageant, which boys in the senior class participate in. Typically the show — a fundraiser for the senior class — takes place in November, but last fall it was canceled due to COVID. Now that it’s happening only seniors will be able to attend in person, although the rest of the community can watch via livestream. 

Next comes the last day of school and senior barbecue on campus, both of which will look typical. Prom, however, will take place at the high school, rather than at a venue. Placing a hefty deposit with an outside venue was just too risky during the pandemic, Collyer said. Only members of the senior class — no underclassmen or outside dates — will be able to attend and students will have to wear masks while they dance. Despite the changes, most seniors are excited. Last week, there was a buzz in the building as prom tickets were distributed, Collyer said. 

“That’s what they’re looking for: just a chance to be with their class,” she said. 

Graduation will look fairly normal. Rather than going to breakfast at their elementary schools, as is the tradition in Salem, seniors will just meet outside their elementary schools and parade to the graduation site. The risk of bringing the seniors into the buildings with young students was just too great, Collyer said. The only event missing from the senior-week line-up is Senior Safe Night, an overnight carnival event. When the planning for that needed to begin, cases were high and the school felt it would be difficult to get the volunteers needed to pull it off. 

Other than that, however, the administration was willing to take on extra work to organize events during the pandemic, because the senior class has been so willing to adapt to new protocols, like missing sports and wearing masks. 

“They have done everything we have asked them to do,” Collyer said. “They deserve to be celebrated. It will be nice to be able to do something for them.”

Earlier this month, Portsmouth High School hosted a vaccination clinic for students. That, coupled with easing CDC guidelines, has made Lyons more comfortable hosting events like graduation and senior banquet (Portsmouth doesn’t typically have a senior prom), with some precautions in place like decreased capacity.  

“COVID restrictions have loosened up so we have more flexibility in what we can safely offer the seniors this year,” Lyons said. “The ceremonies and traditions are a big part of the culture of Portsmouth High School.”

Making space for that culture is important to many school leaders, including Cindy Gallagher, principal of Keene High School. Gallagher said that her students have been constantly willing to accept ever-changing rules and guidance during the pandemic. Because of that, she really wanted to give the class the senior spring that they’ve been looking forward to for years. 

So far, the roughly 300 seniors at Keene High School haven’t been able to gather all together in person. That will change on June 18, when the entire class comes to the school’s football field for graduation. Breaking with tradition, Keene booked prom for the night after graduation. Having the events back-to-back means that if there were a case of COVID at graduation, seniors wouldn’t have to miss prom, or vice-versa. 

To keep kids safe during prom, the school is opening two indoor spaces and an outdoor area. When the district first started planning the dance they considered having students commit to ten-person pods, which they would have to stay with throughout the night, with no intermingling. The students weren’t very interested in that adaptation. 

“That was so foreign. They couldn’t get their heads around it,” Gallagher said. 

Instead, the school said that students would have to forgo slow dances, or any close dancing for that matter. Only seniors can attend. Although some seniors are disappointed with the plans, “there are enough people that it’s meaningful for, that I’m trying to do all that I can,” Gallagher said.

At White Mountains Regional High School in Whitefield, Principal Jacob Hess had the opposite experience: although a handful of students were passionate about prom, most of the class didn’t want to have a prom with restrictions. 

“They seem — and I don’t blame them — rather apathetic,” Hess said.

There’s a feeling among seniors of “Let’s get through this and move onto the next thing at this point,’” he said. 

Despite that, he hopes to make graduation meaningful. Last year the school did graduation in four batches to allow for social distancing. This year, all 60 graduating seniors will be together outside, with the White Mountains looming in the background. Since the CDC recently changed guidelines around mask wearing outside, Hess is considering letting the seniors skip their masks on graduation. 

“The CDC guidelines… might open things more for us,” he said. “It’s about having the class together. We have a beautiful setting up here.”

Last year’s graduating seniors received a lot of attention, but the class of 2021 has been even more hard-hit by the pandemic, Hess said. 

“Everyone thought last year, ‘these seniors have it bad.’ But this senior class lost junior prom, sports, whole school years…” Hess said. Because of that, he’s working to infuse as much normalcy and tradition as possible into the last two weeks of school. 

“We’re trying to send them off into the real world with some positive memories and some good stories to tell down the road,” he said. 

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.