Graduation ceremonies will be outdoors, but in person, for Tacoma, other districts
After going virtual last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, graduation ceremonies for some school districts in Pierce County are back to being in person.
They’ll still look a bit different. For one, they’ll be outdoors.
Tacoma Public Schools announced Sunday all of its June graduation ceremonies will be held at Mount Tahoma High School’s outdoor stadium. Students can invite six guests. Roughly 1,800 students are graduating from all nine high schools.
Other districts are hosting outdoor graduation ceremonies as well.
Bethel School District, with a graduating class of about 1,200, announced in April that all Bethel high schools will have an outdoor graduation on Friday, June 18 at the Washington State Fairgrounds Event Center in Puyallup. Each student can invite four guests. The new venue will cost Bethel slightly more than its usual venue at the Tacoma Dome at roughly $20,000, said Jennifer Bethman, assistant superintendent for Bethel secondary schools.
Franklin Pierce School District is planning outdoor graduation ceremonies at the Washington state fairgrounds. Clover Park School District spokesperson Leanna Albrecht told The News Tribune on Monday that the district was working on logistics and was planning to share more information this week, but the plans are for the ceremonies to be in person.
When a global pandemic isn’t happening, Tacoma and Bethel graduations are typically held at the Tacoma Dome. Since that’s an indoor arena, it would have been more difficult to host, said Tacoma Public Schools spokesperson Dan Voelpel.
“We didn’t want to be in a position to require vaccinations or 72-hour negative COVID tests for minors for parents and siblings to attend graduation,” Voelpel said in a text.
The changes mean Tacoma’s graduations will be more expensive. The Dome typically costs the district $50,000 for all nine graduations, but hosting them at Mount Tacoma will cost roughly $150,000 due to audio-visual equipment rental, staging bleachers and extra staff pay.
“We felt the experience for families was more important this year than the cost,” Voelpel said.
Each graduate’s guests must sit together in a group separated from other groups by six feet, according to health and safety standards set by the state Department of Health, and everyone attending must wear a mask.
“Given the state requirement allowing a 25 percent capacity for outdoor events, Mount Tahoma’s stadium offers the best combination of the most guests per graduate, an outdoor venue for maximum safety, ADA accessibility and a large parking area,” according to the Tacoma Public Schools’ website.
This story was originally published May 10, 2021 at 2:12 PM.
