Even with resurgent clouds of COVID-19 looming next door, the only thing that will keep Monongalia County high school seniors from walking Thursday will be clouds of a different kind.
Pending rain, graduation ceremonies for Morgantown High School, University High and Clay-Battelle are simultaneously slated for 6 p.m. that day at each school’s football field.
Ceremonies, said Donna Talerico, Mon’s assistant superintendent of schools, designed with a full roll call of pandemic particulars.
That means hand sanitizer as you’re going through the gate, she said.
And social distancing, once you’re on the turf or in the bleachers.
It also means a very limited guest list (just two per senior) though the event will be live-streamed.
Don’t forget the fashion accessory of the spring and summer of 2020, Talerico said.
The face mask.
Which could be an issue, depending upon the opinions also attached to the face(s) you’ll be sharing the evening with.
There’s that, plus a concern that now seems simultaneously ancient and trivial.
You know: The worry over rain.
Forecasters are calling for 30% chance of showers by 6 p.m. Thursday.
Such liquid possibility also carries through Friday, Saturday and Sunday, according to reports.
The trio of days have also been tapped as Commencement-alternates, should drops ensue 24 hours from now.
“Well, we’re watching the weather, of course,” Talerico said.
“Mainly though, we’re watching everything else.”
Especially everything else, she said.
Prideful display
Every participating senior gets a facemask done out with their school logo, Talerico said.
School officials and district staffers will also have their faces covered, she added.
The hand sanitizer is for the people who might feel skittish about touching a gate or rail going in.
A total of 3,000 additional facemasks will also be at the ready — Talerico said.
But skittishness in that regard, she said, is just as subjective as ever.
Optional, those masks are.
“We can’t ‘make’ people wear them,” the assistant superintendent said.
“But we can strongly suggest that they do.”
The Monongalia County Board of Health said the same thing last month when it helped the district in the process of gridding out a graduation like no other.
Masking (or not)one’s feelings
Right now, West Virginia is divided into two camps, concerning facial coverings.
So is the rest of the country.
You either wear the mask, or you don’t.
Gov. Jim Justice hasn’t made mask-wearing a mandate.
Not yet.
That doesn’t mean he won’t, though, he said.
He will, he said, if cases in the Mountain State start climbing up the graph.
Which, they are.
That’s why seniors at Preston County High School didn’t get their public graduation ceremony last week.
Fifty-one people in recent days have tested postive for COVID-19 in Preston.
As many as 150 more may have been exposed to the coronavirus.
If all the tracing is correct, the mini-outbreak happened in the most West Virginia of ways: A vacation trip to Myrtle Beach.
Cover for me
The governor, meanwhile, is imploring people to mask-up, whether it’s a trip to the grocery store or a family vacation.
“West Virginia, come on now,” Justice said.
“We really have to get after it.”
Dr. Lee B. Smith, Mon’s county health officer and executive director of the health board said the same as he was writing his own protocol-prescription.
“The Monongalia County Health Department and superintendent of Monongalia County Schools have put a lot of thought and effort into having a graduation as safe as possible,” he said in an email.
“This includes social-distancing, hand-washing and wearing masks.”
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