Graduation options include small outdoor ceremony, vehicle parade

Port Washington High School will hold a graduation event this year, but it won’t be the typical celebration that brings about 1,000 people together in the school gym, administrators said this week. 

The two options under consideration are a limited-attendance ceremony on the school football field or a repeat of last year’s popular vehicle parade through downtown, Principal Thad Gabrielse said this week. 

The decision will hinge in part on the results of a survey of seniors.

“If we’re talking about a more traditional graduation outdoors, we would have to limit the number of people who could attend,” Gabrielse said, adding that students who are quarantined from school at the time because they contracted Covid-19 or may have had contact with someone who did would probably not be able to take part in graduation.

There would be no attendance restrictions for the parade, which proved so popular last year that the school has considered making it a part of regular graduation events even after the pandemic. 

On graduation day last year, seniors, each a passenger in their own vehicle, drove through downtown past sidewalks full of relatives and friends, as well as area residents and visitors to the city who wanted to be part of what turned into a community celebration. Diplomas were handed to graduates at the end of the parade route. 

“To our surprise, the graduation parade became one of the most celebrated events in the city,” Gabrielse said.