Warren County’s high schools are moving toward having graduation events on familiar school facilities.

Not so much with proms.

At Monday’s meeting of the Warren County School District board, Superintendent Amy Stewart announced that “all of the schools are looking at graduation ceremonies outside at their respective football fields.”

The latest COVID-19 mitigation guidance for indoor gatherings is 25 percent of capacity. For outdoor facilities, the district is allowed to have 50 percent. That figure should easily accommodate the number of people who will attend graduations.

“We’ve been talking to the schools all along,” Stewart said. “The principals have been talking to their senior class officers.”

An outdoor graduation does present challenges.

“We’re looking at an outdoor venue graduation at all four schools,” she said. “That hasn’t happened in a long time. Typically, in the event of rain they would go indoors. Currently they would not be able to do that.”

There will be no ‘dam’ graduation this year.

There were preliminary approvals in place to have a graduation event at Kinzua Dam again, like Warren Area High School had last year.

The senior class officers at Warren Area High School offered that choice to the class.“The kids voted in favor of something at War Memorial,” Stewart said.

The outlook for proms is much more gloomy.

Students “are all desperate for some kind of a prom opportunity,” Stewart said. “The kids want to get dressed up nice. They want to go out and have fun.”

Under the current restrictions for indoor events and the guidelines for gatherings in any locations – masking and social distancing – that kind of event is not possible.

“That really puts the kibosh on a lot of the things that they want to do,” Stewart said. “We’re going to be optimistic that things continue to open up.”

If the rules stay in place as they are, there will be some other opportunities.

“I know that there are outside-of-school-district events being planned right now,” Board President Donna Zariczny said.

Stewart said she is aware of those events and has been in touch with those who would host them. Not because she wants to prevent them, but because she wants them to be held at appropriate times.

“Those dates are almost catastrophic for kids having to quarantine for graduation,” she said. “I asked them to think about the implications to graduation. In quarantine and not able to go to high school graduation… we don’t want that to happen.”

“I have asked them to look at a date after graduation,” Stewart said. “I have every reason to believe that they’re going to look at what they can do with dates.”

COVID UPDATE

While some aspects of education in the pandemic have changed, some are very familiar.

A strong majority of parents – 88 percent – responding to a district survey have said they would send their students back in person if things remain exactly the way they are now.

With local COVID cases rising again, things may not remain the same.

“A year ago, we were in crisis,” Stewart said. Schools were shut down and forced to go to full-virtual.

“One year later, here we sit and we still don’t have a lot of answers,” she said.

One thing that has improved dramatically is the impact of cases on the teaching staff.

Many teachers are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and therefore not subject to the quarantine requirements for close contact with a positive case.

“COVID cases are up, but we have zero teachers out, mostly due to vaccinations,” Stewart said.

All Pennsylvanians ages 16 and up are eligible for the vaccine starting Tuesday.

While the Pfizer vaccine, the only one currently approved for those less than 18, is not publicly available in Warren County, it is available in some neighboring counties.

Students who are fully vaccinated are exempt from the close contact quarantine requirements. Those who have had a positive COVID test result – and have recovered – are exempt from those requirements for 90 days from the date of the test.