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By Dave Rogers
For the Record 

Governor's rules allow real-time graduations

 

Last updated 5/14/2020 at 1:46pm

Parents Roderick and Brandy Robertson pose with son Nic in their T-shirts printed for West Orange-Stark's baseball Senior Night. That's just one of the many senior year salutes that lost out because of COVID-19 distancing regulations. A senior trip to a Louisiana water park and Project Safe Graduation were also sidelined. WO-S has tentatively scheduled graduation exercises for June 5 at Dan R. Hooks Mustang Stadium.

In a year when tradition has taken a turn upside down, Orangefield schools are still trying to decide when they'll hold high school graduation.

Truthfully, every school district is.

But in the Age of Covid-19 everything is tentative.

"We had scheduled ours for May 22, but we can't do it then. That's not in the governor's window," Shaun McAlpin, Orangefield superintendent, said.

Last Tuesday, May 5, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued guidelines for how high schools can hold actual in-person graduations.

After June 1, in-person outdoors graduations are allowed. Graduates and their permitted guests will be seated using social distancing rules, so attendance will be limited by the size of the stadium.

"We're looking at the dates the weekends of June 5-6 and June 12-13," McAlpin said. "Our football stadium isn't large enough, so we're looking for a pavilion [like Ford Park], so we can have something covered in case of rain."

West Orange-Stark High School has its graduation set for June 5 at Mustang Stadium. Both Bridge City have their graduations set for June 20 at their football stadiums.

 

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