Looking out my window this morning, it\u2019s a beautiful day. We had a frost warning last night, it one of those May\u2019s that I hated as a track coach. But hopefully last night was the last cold night, it\u2019s going up to the sixties today and the seventies later this week. Maybe April is done now that we\u2019ve reached the middle of May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Funny that somehow \u201cstay at home\u201d isn\u2019t stay \u201cindoors\u201d. It\u2019s not the outside air that\u2019s a risk, nor the cool green grass. It\u2019s people that represent a danger, and it\u2019s me that represents a risk to them. That concept is so much harder than just \u201chide inside\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May is always a busy month in public education. Kids are finishing up school, teams are finishing up the season, and seniors are graduating. But it’s a very different world this year. Kids are still finishing up school, but it\u2019s a cold distant school, reached through a screen and a keyboard. No one is getting hugs on the last day, pitching notebooks into the school trash on the way out the door. It\u2019s just a final sign-off, a last Zoom or video. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not coaching, but if I were this would be an awful, empty year. Staying close to home I don\u2019t notice it that much, but when I got out, drove by the high school track, I felt the ache of loss that those kids are feeling. It\u2019s gone, something that can never be made up. As a coach I always stopped the kids from talking about \u201cnext year\u201d. I\u2019d tell them: \u201c\u2026There\u2019s no guarantee of next year, no contract with the future that your body and your plans will come true. Don\u2019t depend on that; go for your goals now\u201d. I never thought about this scenario though, not for a whole team, a whole class, a whole world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here in Pataskala, the adults are doing their best to make graduation something special. There is no way to replace the camaraderie, sitting by your friends through the ritual of the ceremony. This year, they can\u2019t sit by their friends. Some schools fixed on \u201ccrossing the stage\u201d, the line used by administrators to push marginal seniors to graduate. But crossing an empty stage, in an empty room, and picking up a loan diploma seems to only emphasize all that\u2019s missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But here, the school leaders have taken a different approach. Graduation day is Saturday May 23rd<\/sup>. Thirty school buses will head out, each with a driver, an administrator, and a parade of teachers\u2019 cars behind it. A bus will go to each of the three hundred senior\u2019s homes and pull up. The administrator will come out and award a diploma to the appropriately capped and gowned student. Family, masked and distanced, will get the chance to watch. Pictures will be taken beside the bus. As one parent described it, \u201c\u2026we put a kindergartner on a bus in front of our house thirteen years ago, now the bus delivers our graduate back to us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The emphasis is on the graduate, not the empty room and stage. There was some controversy when this was first announced, along with the final statement that there wouldn\u2019t be a traditional graduation. Some folks lashed out on social media, attacking the school leaders for \u201cletting the kids down\u201d. But once that first wave of frustration washed through, most of the community got behind the plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Finish Line<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dahlman.online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/96512877_10219960532516662_8409574475560910848_n.jpg?resize=840%2C408&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n