Deprived of graduation, the Fayette Class of 2020 has gotten a lesson in community and care
In the blink of an eye, our country (and the world for that matter) has been forced to bend in incredible ways over the past several months. The well-being of every man, woman, and child in America is under threat, and we are at war. This war is in our neighborhood streets and parks, invisible but felt in every other way. The frontlines are our childhood clinics and city hospitals, filled with people we know and love. So where does that leave the fateful Class of 2020, who had no insight into what was coming? With school buildings shuttered, our friends and teachers are no more than pixels on a screen. We had people to say goodbye to and a few last memories to make. There will be no dressing up for a “night to remember”, and our caps and gowns will collect dust in a closet, instead of being memorialized in a picture frame in our parent’s living room.
We’re not going back to our high schools, but school is most definitely in session, and the world herself is holding class. As we traverse through this coronavirus crash course (unfortunately without John Green), we remember the ceaseless support of our community during times that create difficulties for us, our state, our country, and even the world.
As leaders of the class of 2020, this memory will be the most impressing and important one. What sense of love and kinship our class has been deprived of as a result of cancellations, we gained in support and togetherness of our community. Fayette County remains the fourth most affected county in Kentucky in regards to the novel coronavirus with 254 confirmed cases as of May 1. However, this is no reflection of how we have impeccably worked hand-in-hand to tackle the issue. The synergy in the face of hardship helped to, at one point, dwindle our community’s cases to only one newly infected patient in four days, no small feat considering the rabidly contagious characteristics of COVID-19. Speaking for all the seniors of 2020, we are proud to represent and participate in a community that is able to cooperate, coexist, and overcome problems that reside in uncharted waters, even if it means sacrificing our final moments as high schoolers.
Life is not a textbook. There is no right answer, and oftentimes the hardest thing to figure out is what question needs to be asked. The question now is, “Can we prepare where our leaders did not?” This responsibility for our generation leaves us to use what we have learned about community, connectedness, and optimism to lead a future where principles of altruism, not sensationalism, define our society. With these values leading our generation, we can continue to a world where pandemics are a word of the past. The class of 2020’s celebration won’t be throwing our caps into the air, but instead throwing our masks to the ground.
Although the certainty of a normal future and fall semester remains unstable, the knowledge we have gained from this experience is invaluable. We learned the importance of community, the strength of connectedness, the value of time spent with each other, and the amount that an optimistic attitude can change one’s struggles. Even though we missed the final moments of high school, we learned in the span of two months what took most people years to learn, and we continue to grow not only as a class but also as a community. We empathize with our peers and their battles against this unexpected ending, but we urge them to close their eyes, and in the blink of an eye, envision what a future might look like with the new values, insights, and experiences learned during this time.
This article was written by Drew Rodriguez and Nasim Mohammadzadeh on behalf of the Interschool Council: Deja Baker (Bryan Station), Jarvis Byrd (Carter G. Woodson), Michelle Choi (Lafayette), Ellie Kiper (Frederick Douglass), Nasim Mohammadzadeh (Paul Laurence Dunbar), Grace Ramey (Henry Clay), Drew Rodriguez (Frederick Douglass) and Jenna Shalash (Tates Creek). The Interschool Council is an informal group made up of the six FCPS high school student council presidents, along with Carter G. Woodson’s.