High School Seniors Petition For Graduations To Be Postponed

MURRAY, Utah — A group of high school seniors have started an online petition, calling for their graduations to be postponed to late summer if that’s what’s needed to have a gathering in person.

Choe Koler, Isabel Cossa and Noah Burbidge are all seniors at Cyprus High School. They said they would rather postpone graduation rather than hold a virtual one.

“All of my life, I’ve been excited for this event,” said Burbidge. “Graduation is the capstone of high school. It’s like the very end, and its final victory of high school you did it, and you made it through all this stuff.”

“It’s really important to all of us that we kind of get that final satisfactory moment that we did it,” said Kohler.

“It means a lot because you’re celebrating all those trials you overcome,” said Cossa.

A group of high school seniors starting a “no virtual graduation” petition. They want graduation to be delayed into summer months..What’s your ideas if graduations are canceled in May? Go virtual? Delay? @KSL5TV #Graduation2020 pic.twitter.com/38HYrEIyBv

— Dan Rascon (@TVDanRascon) April 15, 2020

Graduations have not officially been canceled in the state of Utah. They are still on the calendar to take place at a variety of different venues, but with the way things are headed, it doesn’t appear graduations in late May will be happening as normal. As a result, many have been talking about virtual graduations as a possible option.

“Virtual graduations will not be special to us,” said Burbidge.

In the petition, the students suggested four things: postpone graduation, move to a smaller venue, limit the number of guests, and require health and safety measures to be put in place.

This kind of dialogue among students is exactly what school district officials said they want to hear, as they themselves are trying to come up with a variety of ideas to make graduation a meaningful event.

“We agree. I think there is some misinformation out there that we don’t want to have in person graduation,” said Ben Horsley, spokesperson for the Granite School District. “This is a preeminent event for all these students. We want to do everything we can to make it special.”

That why Horsely said postponing it would make sense, especially if there is a guarantee that it can still happen in July or August.

“That’s why it’s important that we evaluate every potential option available because we can’t get to a circumstance where we decide we got to postpone, and then we can’t still have that event due to new circumstances,” said Horsley.

“This is the type of feedback we would be looking for,” said Jeff Haney, spokesperson for Canyon School District when talking about a virtual graduation, or postponing the event for a later date. “This is obviously a very disappointing time for students. All of this is being discussed, all of this is on the table.”

Dr. Anthony Godfrey, the superintendent at Jordan School District, agreed that postponing is definitely an option. He said they are doing everything they can to make sure students have an incredibly memorable event.

“All options are on the table and we will seek a lot of feedback from students, parents and educators. We want to create something that is meaningful and memorable and personal for them because they deserve that.”