St. Cloud Seniors to Have In-Person and Virtual Graduation Events

ST. CLOUD -- Schools in St. Cloud are getting creative to honor this year’s graduating seniors.

Students at Tech High School and Apollo High School will be collecting their diplomas in person but celebrating with their peers from a distance.

Assistant Superintendent Laurie Putnam says part of the festivities at the end of the month will be similar to the typical graduation ceremony.

We're guessing about 20 families per hour will be assigned a time slot and then they will either go to Tech or Apollo where we will be awarding individual students their diplomas in front of up to five family members.

Tech students will walk on May 28th and Apollo students will follow on the 29th. A vehicle parade for seniors and families will follow each event as well as a virtual graduation ceremony online that evening with photos, music and pre-recorded speeches by students and faculty who were already scheduled to speak.

Putnam says they spoke to numerous students and families to help put the plans together.

We did a survey of our senior class, and we had meetings with our class of 2020 families at Tech and Apollo. We also have had on-going meetings with the senior class advisors and the senior committees and we have been able to incorporate almost all of the requests that people have made.

The class of 2020 will also receive senior signs they can display in the windows of their homes when they pick up their caps and gowns next week.

The district has partnered with a local billboard company to display a slideshow with photos of all of the graduating seniors in a couple of places around town.

Putnam says the district is hoping to put together another event for the graduates to get together this summer, but are not sure if it will be possible.