KINGWOOD — The Preston County Board of Education voted unanimously Monday not to hold an outdoor graduation.
The county had planned an outdoor graduation ceremony for the Class of 2020 on June 18, but canceled it because of the objections of the Preston County Health Department. However, after Gov. Jim Justice gave the green light to graduations, it was placed on Monday’s agenda for reconsideration.
Any hope of the ceremony died after Preston County’s COVID-19 cases rose as the result of a group of Preston seniors who went to Myrtle Beach. On Monday the health department said that outbreak has spread from the original vacationers to people they had contact with on their return.
On Monday Preston had a total of 50 positive cases, 30 of them connected to the trip, including the two who caught it through community spread.
County Health Department Director V.J. Davis was at Monday’s meeting and urged the board not to reschedule the event. Superintendent Steve Wotring made the same recommendation.
“Our concern with an outdoor ceremony is the fact that you’re going to attract hundreds of people at one time to an event in the middle of a worldwide pandemic of a disease that spreads person to person,” Davis told the board.
And, “especially in light of the situation currently in the county, in the span of less than one week, we have gone from 19 positive cases of coronavirus to 50 confirmed cases of coronavirus, mainly related to a beach trip or trips that was taken by some young adults from Preston County to Myrtle Beach,” he said.
It’s “way too much risk,” Davis said.
Board Member Pam Feathers said the board did have questions about why one county health department approved a graduation and theirs did not, but those questions are no longer relevant.
“No one’s to blame. This outbreak could have happened anywhere,” Feathers said.
Board Member Bruce Huggins agreed. “I think it’s important that people realize this is not anyone’s fault,” he said. “It is very, highly contagious.”
Board President Jack Keim read the list of recognitions done for 2020 seniors. Those include individual, inside ceremonies for each senior and his or her family, giving each a DVD of each class member as they graduated and a photo from the ceremony, and recognitions by several communities.
“It’s not that we have neglected to recognize our 2020 seniors,” Keim said. “It’s the fact we have had to do it creatively. I think all of us would like that outside graduation if it were possible.”
But it isn’t possible, Keim noted.
