Albert Chen ’23
Photo courtesy of EA communications
Prom and Graduation are milestone events in a student’s senior year and the EA administration remains committed to finding ways for the 2020 senior class to experience them, despite the campus officially being closed until the end of the school year by Governor’s Wolf’s executive order.
The Haverford School had decided to close school well before Governor Wolf’s order and therefore had already decided to hold a virtual graduation for its seniors. Other colleges and high schools are debating between virtualizing, postponing, or canceling events like graduation. EA, unlike Haverford and other schools, seems to be favoring postponement of its major senior events.
EA hopes to hold four main events: prom, graduation rehearsal, corporal communion, and graduation. Kris Aldridge, senior form dean, said that “The good thing for us is that all these events are held on campus besides prom,” says Aldridge. “This allows us great flexibility with rescheduling … The school currently has two contingency dates for rescheduling these events, a four day period in July, and a four day period in early August if needed.” If both alternatives are infeasible, the school will reevaluate the situation once that is determined.
Mrs. Aldridge iterated that while the school cares greatly about these milestones for the current class of seniors, “The safety of our community is our number one concern … The Pennsylvania department of health and the CDC recommendation will continue to drive our decision making.”
Bella Franklin ‘20 is disappointed that Coronavirus is causing such a disturbance to normal life, but she is very glad that “the school is going out of their way to continue to make plans to allow us to finish out our senior year and that the big things like prom and graduation will continue to happen.” Furthermore, she expressed her gratitude toward her current situation. “We’re so lucky that we have the technology that we have to continue to take online classes with teacher communication. I think the school is doing a great job with handling the situation even though we’d all rather be in real school.”
While the school has clear contingency plans for larger events such as prom and graduation, smaller senior events like lawn day and sweater day will likely be canceled if school does not resume before their scheduled dates. Michael Bai ‘20 articulated his discontent, but also his understanding of the current situation. “I am very disappointed that I won’t be able to experience these things. After seeing the past three senior classes do all these fun events, it’s sad that our senior class will not be able to do them as well, but I know that the school is acting for the sake of our health and safety.”