This year's graduation is on Saturday, June 22 and the rehearsal is on June 21. Students will be receiving caps and gowns on rehearsal day, which is upsetting to some because they won't have a lot of time to decorate their caps and they are worried about the sizing of their gowns.

Senior Mackenzie Hayden said, “I believe that the students should have accessibility to their caps and gowns a week or two before graduation. It is your responsibility to keep them in good condition and have them for the day of graduation.”

Senior Maddie Baum said, “My opinion is that it is really stressful and not a good idea because there are a lot of things that could go wrong. People could get the wrong sizes and stuff like that so it seems like it would be more stressful and hectic.”

Senior Jenna Hood said, "It is inconvenient because it only gives students one day to decorate their caps.”

Mrs. Ingersoll, who coordinates graduation, said, “Because we are doing graduation in the middle of the two Regents weeks, we decided on rehearsal on a day with the least amount of impact on students taking exams.”

She went on to explain, "In the past, graduation has been after all testing is completed and we did rehearsal on a day when the least amount of seniors would be impacted, which happened to be the day of the LOTE exams. Unfortunately, this year the LOTE exams are on Monday after our graduation."

Mrs. Parkhurst and other stakeholders felt that waiting until all of the testing was over, and having graduation on Saturday, June 29, would be too late.

Mrs. Ingersoll also explained that the gowns are the only item with a size and this is mostly determined by height. This alleviates the worries about sizing because the only problems about them could be them being too long or too short.

No matter what happens and even if students have to stay up all night to decorate their caps, everyone will look great for graduation!