Still hoping for in-person graduations, Fayette schools will hold virtual ceremonies first

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Fayette school officials still want to have in-person graduation ceremonies at Rupp Arena in 2020 if deemed safe because that’s what high school seniors in Lexington want, Fayette Superintendent Manny Caulk said Friday.

However Caulk and James McMillin, the district’s director of high schools, said there would first be a virtual graduation for the district’s 2,000 seniors in the Class of 2020, perhaps in June. In-person classes were canceled in mid-March to curb the coronavirus spread and won’t resume this academic year in Kentucky.

Caulk said district officials have put a hold on dates in July, September and December for ceremonies at Rupp Arena, in case they can get the blessings of the Lexington-Fayette Health Department and Gov. Andy Beshear.

“We hope to hold an in-person graduation for our seniors at sometime in our future,” Caulk said. “We are absolutely committed to following every safety precaution and would not hold an event without permission.”

“We’ve heard our seniors and we do want to try to make that happen,” said McMillin. Seniors told district officials they want an in-person graduation.

The virtual ceremonies are still in development, with photos and speeches being collected, McMillin said. He said seniors will be celebrated in ways that would be announced soon and that the virtual ceremonies would reflect what would be experienced in an in-person ceremony.

Students have been learning from home through a non-traditional instruction program with a learning plan for each student.

So that no child lacks technology for virtual learning, the district is offering Chromebooks to any student who needs them and 2,100 “hot spots” -- WI-FI technology -- to provide six months of internet access to students who don’t have it. Caulk called that a “gamechanger.”

The district has 600 hot spots in hand and is spending $250,000 in total on the hot spots, Caulk said.

Also a new virtual ‘real men read program’ called VirtuReal Read will allow community mentors to record themselves reading aloud so that elementary students can have a virtual story hour.

Not yet knowing what learning will look like in August, Caulk said the district will be working on a plan for fall. State education officials have raised the possibility that schools might not open for in-person classes as they normally would.

Caulk said when the Fayette school district is judged for how it handled the COVID-19 challenge, he wants it to be “heralded for compassion and empathy.”

This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 3:35 PM.