Graduation is the one ceremony that everyone looks forward to since kindergarten. Especially after spending four years in high school, watching the classes before them walk the stage and be celebrated. During those same four years, most students develop relationships with fellow classmates, and memories that will last a lifetime. With seniors expecting the last semester of high school being spent with these friends, before going off on separate pathways. 

With the recent wide-spread COVID-19 pandemic, causing sanctions to be put in place in the interest of public safety, most schools have been met with unfamiliar territories with continuing classes online and planning end of the year events. The seniors have already had the last months of their high school careers taken from them, which is understandable and necessary given current circumstances and precautions. 

What is not acceptable, however, is haste. Transylvania County public schools has chosen to host a "drive-in movie" concept for graduation, with a prerecorded video and a picture slide show being shown on a projected screen, with only immediate family being allowed to view with the graduates. Although it has the right intentions, a "drive through" graduation does not highlight the thirteen years of hard work and dedication these seniors have put it. This petition proposes that a traditional graduation be hosted later, when it is safe to do so.