Despite a last-minute change in guidelines, local school districts are planning to utilize as much of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mandate that outdoor graduations could be held with a maximum of 150 people as possible.

Last Sunday’s news of the 150-person limit was welcome news to administrators and students at Fredonia Central School, who will graduate approximately 114 students and had been working since the beginning of May on planning a proper ceremony.

“Those plans have been impacted every time the rules have changed, but in a positive way — and I really give our high school principal Darrin Paschke all the credit for the planning and his committee,” Jeffrey Sortisio, the district’s superintendent, said. “They have continually adjusted because what we want to do is prepare the best ceremony that we can under the circumstances for our kids and for our seniors. It would be easy to say we’ve already made our decision, but we know rules change, but that’s not what’s happened here.”

The district is now planning on a live Sunday, June 28 ceremony at the Chautauqua County Fairgrounds, during which graduates will be socially distanced crossing a specially donated stage.

“The feeling of the students was that anything we could do to allow the class to be together, not inside of cars, not be separated into several different ceremonies or doing it virtually, anything that could keep them as a group would make them happy,” Paschke told the OBSERVER. “We have to keep it under 150 people total outside so that the parents still have to be in their cars, so they’ll be parked behind the grass and behind the graduates on the midway of the fairgrounds.”

Paschke said the district waited until the last possible moment to make plans so as to allow for maximum in-person participation as possible.

“Everyone has been a little impatient, but as things keep changing we want to give the best possible opportunity for our kids for the end of the year and we figured if we waited as long as possible before we sent everything out we could get the best of the best,” Darrin Paschke, principal at Fredonia High School, said. “And, it came to pass that the governor said you can have 150 people. It’s been nice because then we haven’t had to send something out saying we had to change our plan.”

Westfield Academy and Central School administrators also had made different plans prior to the governor’s announcement.

“Previous to this, we had a parade we were planning for students and families that we would meet at a designated area, a parade into town and a parade onto campus via automobile,” Superintendent Michael Cipolla told school board members at last Wednesday’s meeting. “At that point, folks would be directed to two areas where our students would be recognized, receive a diploma, have some time with their family, teachers and board members and administrators and take pictures and celebrate. That, in a nutshell, is what we had, had planned but we received the pleasant news that we are going to be able to do an in-person ceremony.”

At the meeting, Cipolla and secondary school principal Corey Markham discussed a potential plan for an in-person ceremony with the board that would take place on June 27. The district would hold two ceremonies on the field behind the school, but the students will be present for both.

“The idea is that at 8 a.m. there will be a ceremony for the first half of the class alphabetically,” said Cipolla, who said more information would be released to parents and students in the coming days. “All the students would be present, the parents would be able to come in respecting the 150 person limit and then maybe at 9:30 a.m., for example, we would host the second ceremony which would be an identical ceremony to the first, keeping the cohesion of the class so they can celebrate and graduate together. We will also live stream it, knowing there are limitations as far as the number of attendees. The live stream will be a key component for us.”

“The ceremonies each would look exactly the same … Speeches might be a little bit better because people have already read them once,” said Markham with a laugh, noting that the period between the ceremonies will work like halftime at a football game.

“At halftime, the first group would have to leave and the third quarter starts and the next group of family members and spectators would come in,” he said. “The graduates would all stay the entire time. So, that’s what we’re looking at.”

Dunkirk City School district, meanwhile, announced their plans for graduation on Friday, noting that a similar ceremony to Fredonia’s will be conducted on the turf of Karl Hoeppner Field beginning at 10:30 a.m on Saturday, June 27, which will be simulcast to parents and families by Cable Access Channel 12.

“There was a strong indication from the students that they wanted to be together on the athletic field together and they really wanted to ring the bell, which is a tradition,” superintendent Michael Mansfield told the OBSERVER. “So we’re working within those guidelines and we have a plan that we are working on including parents of the graduate be on-site and stay within our 150-person limit. We know parents want to see and be involved in the ceremony as much as possible and in these conditions, we’re trying to do the best we can to make that happen.”

Considering the circumstances, Mansfield was also pleased to be able to provide members of the Class of 2020 some good news.

“These students, especially our seniors, have missed out on some really traditional parts of being a senior in the spring,” he said. “We wanted to get as close to a ceremony that they’re used to as we could within the guidelines we’ve been given at this point. We also have to be considerate of the fact that things could change. We really want to give them, at this commencement, an experience as close to what they’d be used to as we could.”

Paschke, too, has been grateful to the stakeholders in his district who have worked to properly honor graduates.

“Everybody has been flexible and so giving of their time in understanding that this has been a really difficult year for the seniors especially,” he said. “They haven’t been able to do the things they normally would that are considered rights of passage. Every moment that people have contributed, every dollar, every goodwill wish they’ve given has been so helpful to make this special for our kids. Every teacher at every level has been phenomenal in helping to pull this off.”

Still, districts will need to be flexible as more information continues to come out, Mansfield said.

“As we have learned in the last separate months, we need to be adaptable to whatever comes next,” he added.