As online graduation plan is criticized, Fort Worth schools chief says ‘no’ to alternatives
Lisa Muttiah was looking forward to watching her triplets, seniors at the Texas Academy of Biomedical Sciences, graduate later this month at Will Rogers Auditorium.
They are among 91 final-year students at one of the Fort Worth Independent School District’s smaller specialized campuses, and thousands of other seniors elsewhere, yearning to participate in a central ritual of the teenage experience.
“This is a life passage for students,” she said. “They live to graduate.”
Last week, the district said that graduations would be held online and would join canceled proms and classrooms that have been dark since spring break as elements of school life that have been colored by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The district is too large a system to adopt the graduation alternatives that other districts have, Superintendent Kent Scribner said Friday, as criticism of his plan to shelve in-person ceremonies intensified.
With about 20 graduations and 5,000 seniors expected to take part in the ritual as coronavirus pandemic concerns persist, holding a commencement at a drive-in theater, for example, is impractical, Scribner said.
Denton County school district superintendents said on Friday that high school seniors will receive diplomas at Texas Motor Speedway. The Dallas Independent School District has said it will also hold online graduations.
Scribner, the FWISD superintendent, spoke from his desk in a video in which he addressed members of the senior class. Scribner said the district had made its announcement with “profound disappointment.”
Many students and their parents condemned the plan to hold graduations online after the district announced that plan on Wednesday. About 715 comments were left on the district’s Facebook posting on the graduation decision.
In a step not described in the original announcement, Scribner said that if gathering restrictions are relaxed, it is possible he will consider options for a graduation celebration later this summer.
Scribner noted the support the district had received from some quarters for the online plan.
“Some families have told us they would not feel safe attending, or even allowing their seniors to participate in, any large gatherings this spring.”
The virus remains a major public health concern.
Tarrant County officials confirmed on Saturday 115 new COVID-19 cases and two more deaths while warning community spread of the virus continues to be substantial, even as some restrictions are being lifted.
There have been a total of 2,503 coronavirus cases and 71 deaths, according to the county’s public health department.
The Fort Worth virtual graduations will use technology to allow students to share photographs of themselves in cap and gown. The district has not released other details.
Muttiah said she understood the importance of social distancing, and the district should have found an alternative other than an online ceremony that will be impersonal.
The online commencement “is basically submitting a picture of your child and then watching that picture virtually,” Muttiah said.
District communication on the matter, she said, had been disappointing.
“Right now we have no date,” she said.
This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 7:05 PM.
