Monday graduation is out. Will you be a virtual graduation attendee?

[prin...@sethigh.org]

Dear Seniors and Senior Families,

We have families who cannot make a Monday graduation work, so that is off of the table.  For those who know of other venues, the following are the must-haves for a COVID-19-safe graduation:

• It must be outdoors
• It must have enough space to accommodate 45 graduates, 25 staff members, and at least 2 guests per graduate (with all family units socially distanced and preferably with the graduates sitting apart from the families and socially-distanced from each other)
  • We have a history of not limiting the number of guests that each graduate can bring to graduation since Balboa Park had so much space, so we would prefer to have enough space to at least accommodate each graduate's full family
• It must have a sound-system
• It must have a hard-wired, fast, internet connection so that we can have a hybrid graduation to support those students and families who cannot attend because of COVID
• Preferences:
  • Beautiful setting
  • Ample parking
  • Easy setup and tear down
  • Built-in sound system so that we don't have to bring one in
  • Some form of projection

With that last point in mind, please let me know now if your graduate is only planning to attend the graduation virtually because of the COVID risk.  It is ok to change your mind later, but if everyone is planning to attend in person, we can relax the need for fast internet because the technology element is a little less critical.  We would still prefer to stream the ceremony to family members who cannot travel, but it would not be the end of the world if the live stream does not work.  If we have graduates who are attending virtually, though, we would have less tolerance for failure and would have to put more thought into making sure that everything worked smoothly.

The current best option for the ceremony is the parking structure next door which supports all of the above.  It's a little short on the beautiful setting part, but there is actually already some nice greenery built in and we can dress up the rest of it to make it feel special.  It was a parent who found the Torrey Pines Church option, though, so please let us know if you have a possible alternative for us to investigate.

Note that I accidentally sent my last email from my personal GMail account which tends to get spam filtered, so if this email feels like it is coming out of the blue, let me know and I'll resend the other one to you.

Thanks, everyone!

Dr. McCurdy